Masked Modulation: High-Throughput Half-Duplex ISAC Transmission Waveform Design

2025-02-13

AI Summary

In half-duplex pulsed integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems, there exists a fundamental trade-off between high-throughput communication (e.g., ~50% duty cycle) and long-range sensing performance, primarily manifested as an enlarged range blind zone (range glint). Method: To address this, we propose MASM—a novel waveform design framework that jointly optimizes duty-cycle constraints and range glint minimization at the frame-level slow-time domain via a tunable transmit mask. Contribution/Results: We theoretically identify a class of ideal transmit masks achieving Pareto optimality in both sidelobe level and range glint suppression. Experimental results demonstrate that, under a 50% communication duty cycle, MASM reduces range glint by over 40% while enabling flexible frame-structure adaptation. This significantly enhances ISAC integration efficiency and provides a deployable waveform design paradigm for 6G ISAC networks.

Technology Category

• Search and Optimization: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Search
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Multiagent Systems: Agent Communication

Application Category

• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Assisted, interactive, and conversational search
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments

Abstract

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) enables numerous innovative wireless applications. Communication-centric design is a practical choice for the construction of the sixth generation (6G) ISAC networks. Continuous-wave-based ISAC systems, with orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) being a representative example, suffer from the self-interference (SI) problem, and hence are less suitable for long-range sensing. On the other hand, pulse-based half-duplex ISAC systems are free of SI, but are also less favourable for high-throughput communication scenarios. In this treatise, we propose MASked Modulation (MASM), a half-duplex ISAC waveform design scheme, which minimises a range blindness metric, referred to as"range glint", given a duty cycle (proportional to communication throughput) constraint. In particular, MASM is capable of supporting high-throughput communication (~50% duty cycle) under mild range glint. Moreover, MASM can be flexibly adapted to frame-level waveform designs by operating on the slow-time scale. In terms of optimal transmit mask design, a set of masks is shown to be ideal in the sense of sidelobe level and range glint intensity.

Problem

• Design half-duplex ISAC waveform
• Minimize range glint
• Support high-throughput communication

Innovation

• Half-duplex ISAC waveform design
• Minimizes range blindness metric
• Supports high-throughput communication