Using Massive MIMO Arrays for Joint Communication and Sensing

One of the trends that is gaining more and more importance in the field of beyond-5G and 6G wireless communication systems is the investigation on systems that jointly perform communication and sensing of the environment. This paper proposes to use a base station (BS), that we call radar-BS, equipped with a large-scale antenna array to execute, using the same frequency range, communication with mobile users and sensing/surveillance of the surrounding environment through radar scanning. The massive antenna array can indeed both operate as a MIMO radar with co-located antennas - transmitting radar signals pointing at positive elevation angles - and perform signal-space beamforming to communicate with users mainly based on the ground. Our results show that using a massive MIMO radar-BS the communication and the radar system can coexist with little mutual interference.