Concurrent Downlink and Uplink Joint Communication and Sensing for 6G Networks

Joint communication and sensing (JCAS) is a promising technology for 6th Generation (6G) mobile networks, such as intelligent vehicular networks, intelligent manufacturing, and so on. Equipped with two spatially separated antenna arrays, the base station (BS) can perform downlink active JCAS in a mono-static setup. This paper proposes a Concurrent Downlink and Uplink (CDU) JCAS system where the BS can use the echo of transmitted dedicated signals for sensing in the uplink timeslot, while performing reliable uplink communication. A novel successive interference cancellation-based CDU JCAS processing method is proposed to enable the estimation of uplink communication symbols and downlink sensing parameters. Extensive simulation results verify the feasibility of the CDU JCAS system, showing a performance improvement of more than 10 dB compared to traditional JCAS methods while maintaining reliable uplink communication.