Large Intelligent Surface Measurements for Joint Communication and Sensing

Abstract: Multiple concepts for future generations of wireless communication standards utilize coherent processing of signals from many distributed antennas. Names for these concepts include distributed MIMO, cell-free massive MIMO, XL-MIMO, and large intelligent surfaces. They aim to improve communication reliability, capacity, as well as energy efficiency and provide possibilities for new applications through joint communication and sensing. One such recently proposed solution is the concept of RadioWeaves. It proposes a new radio infrastructure for distributed MIMO with distributed internal processing, storage, and compute resources integrated into the infrastructure. The large bandwidths available in the higher bands have inspired much work regarding sensing in the mmWave- and sub-THz-bands, however, sub-6 GHz cellular bands will still be the main provider of broad cellular coverage due to the more favorable propagation conditions. In this paper, we present results from a sub-6 GHz measurement campaign targeting the non-stationary spatial channel statistics for a large RadioWeave and the temporal non-stationarity in a dynamic scenario with RadioWeaves. From the results, we also predict the possibility of multi-static sensing and positioning of users in the environment.