Scalable Sensing-Assisted Communication: Digital Twin Technologies and Experimental Study

The integration of sensing and communications has recently attracted considerable attention from both academia and industry. In line with this, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has initiated efforts to standardize Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC), which is widely seen as an important feature for 6G wireless communications. Among the emerging technologies, Radio Digital-Twin (RDT) stands out as a powerful and versatile tool for implementing scalable sensing-assisted communication. The effectiveness of an RDT hinges on its ability to maintain high fidelity and synchrony with the real world, a task in which ISAC plays a crucial role by providing live environmental data to refine and calibrate the RDT. Despite its potential, the construction and maintenance of RDTs require extensive manual efforts, facing scalability challenges. This paper presents a novel approach to RDT construction and maintenance, based on a fully automated pipeline that eliminates the need for human intervention. By using widely available maps, geographical information systems, computer vision, and wireless sensing, we have developed a method that significantly reduces the time and effort required to create and maintain RDTs. Our approach has been implemented and tested in a 5G New Radio (NR) mmWave system at Qualcomm San Diego campus, demonstrating its effectiveness in reducing device energy consumption and enhancing communication performance.