An Adaptive cmWave/FR3 Channel Sounder for Integrated Sensing and Communication
K. F. Nieman, O. Kanhere, R. Shiu, W. Xu, C. Duan, S. S. Ghassemzadeh
TL;DR
This work introduces an adaptive cmWave/FR3 channel sounder designed for integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) across indoor and outdoor deployments. It combines a modular IF-baseband transceiver with flexible RF front-ends to enable multi-band, multi-node operation, electronic beam steering, and rapid 360° channel profiling. The paper details a four-step calibration process (OTA, transmit/receive flatness, incident power, and beam-based omnidirectional power synthesis), and demonstrates performance through outdoor measurements across 7–14.5 GHz, including PAP/PADP analyses and ISAC scenarios with mono-static and bi-static configurations. A target-path loss model for ISAC scenarios is proposed, and the results underscore the system’s potential for accelerating ISAC research and practical wireless deployments such as V2V/V2I demonstrations.
Abstract
In this paper, we present an advanced channel sounding system designed for sensing and propagation experiments in all types of cellular deployment scenarios. The system's exceptional adaptability, high resolution, and sensitivity makes it an invaluable tool for utilization in a variety of indoor and outdoor measurement campaigns. The sounder has a 2.5 ns delay resolution, 170 dB path loss measurement capability and is able to measure a {360\textdegree} power-angular delay profile of the channel in less than 0.9 ms. Additionally, the system can be easily reconfigured to measure different frequency bands by changing the RF front-end antennas. This versatile sounder is suitable for double directional channel sounding, high-speed vehicular experiments such as vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications, and integrated communication and sensing experiments.