ISAC Has Groundbreaking Potential to Transform 6G Networks After 2033

Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) is a groundbreaking concept aiming to turn mobile networks into radars that can sense moving objects in their vicinity. According to a new report from global technology intelligence firm ABI Research, ISAC is a revolutionary innovation poised to transform the future of 6G networks. These new networks will potentially create new use cases for enterprise verticals that the industry cannot yet conceive. Although it’s still early days for the new concept, a massive effort is being spent in standards bodies, vendor R&D labs, and academia to understand the implications, requirements, and technical details of the new concept.

“ISAC can completely redefine the deployment purpose of cellular networks and repurpose its use toward detecting objects,” says Dimitris Mavrakis, Senior Research Director at ABI Research. “Imagine a cellular network being capable of detecting victims of natural disasters and alerting first responders, or a home network being able to monitor health vital statistics completely passively. This could revolutionize the network market and many other industries, including healthcare, transportation, automotive, and logistics.”

But the road to mainstream ISAC deployments is not easy. Technical breakthroughs must happen in several key areas, including waveforms, hardware design, AI algorithms, and application design. These developments are happening worldwide, with China being the first to deploy a pre-standards ISAC system for commercial use in Shenzhen, leading to learnings for the rest of the market and standardization activities. ZTE’s commercial development of ISAC represents a monumental milestone and can expose the value of new sensing use cases to the rest of the industry, accelerating development.

“ISAC will unlikely be part of the early stages of 6G networks and will likely be deployed after 2033-2034 due to the monumental effort required to commercialize it. However, 3GPP has proven that this is exactly what it excels at: creating technologies that drive value and carrier-grade systems that can improve the lives of consumers and the efficiency of enterprises,” says Mavrakis. “Although ISAC has a long development road ahead, we already see fragments of its foundational technologies in the market today.”

These findings are from ABI Research’s Integrated Communication and Sensing: A Major 6G Innovation report. This report is part of the company’s 5G, 6G and Open RAN  research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights. Based on extensive primary interviews,  Application Analysis reports present an in-depth analysis of key market trends and factors for a specific technology.