The Swedish Research Council recently presented awarded grants in natural and engineering sciences in 2024. Musa Furkan Keskin, researcher at the Communication Systems unit at the Department of Electrical Engineering, was granted SEK 4.4 million in starting grants over 4 years. Hear him talk more about the project and the significance of the grant.
What is your project about?
The project, titled “Localization and Sensing for PERceptive CEll-Free Networks Towards 6G” (6G-PERCEF), investigates foundational channel models and innovative signal processing approaches for localization and sensing in 6G cell-free (CF) distributed multiple-input multiple-output (D-MIMO) systems. Localization involves estimation of the 3D location of connected devices, while sensing refers to detection of passive objects using radio signals reflected from the environment. The overall goal of 6G-PERCEF is to endow 6G CF networks with perception capability by developing novel methods to localize user equipments and sense objects in the environment.
Why is this research important?
As envisioned use cases for 6G wireless systems impose extreme requirements on data rate, reliability and latency, user-centric CF D-MIMO systems have emerged as a promising alternative to traditional network-centric cellular architectures. Fulfilling the demands in 6G, CF D-MIMO systems require high-precision location and mapping information (i.e., perception) to support myriad communication functions like beam alignment, beam tracking, radio resource management) and emerging 6G use cases, such as digital twinning for immersive smart cities and extended reality. The proposed project addresses this need by incorporating localization and sensing functionalities into CF networks, which could lead to a major technological leap that can satisfy the extreme requirements of 6G systems.
What does the funding mean to you?
Integrated communication, localization and sensing (ISAC) represents a fast-growing multi-disciplinary field that will gain even greater significance as we move towards 6G. This funding will enable me to establish an independent research path in the area of ISAC in 6G D-MIMO systems, paving the way for impactful contributions in an intellectually stimulating research environment at the Communication Systems Group at Chalmers E2. The project will also significantly benefit the department’s research strategy to strengthen its capabilities in ISAC, foster collaborations with other departments at Chalmers (for example, MC2 for experimental validation) as well as with institutions within Sweden and throughout Europe.
From Chalmers, a total of 30 projects within the call area Natural and Engineering Sciences received grants from the Swedish Research Council. Read the full list here: Funding from the Swedish Research Council 2024
- Researcher, Communication, Antennas and Optical Networks, Electrical Engineering