An overview on integrated localization and communication towards 6G

While the 5G cellular system is being deployed worldwide, researchers have started the investigation of the 6G mobile communication networks. Although the essential requirements and key usage scenarios of 6G are yet to be defined, it is believed that 6G should be able to provide intelligent and ubiquitous wireless connectivity with Tbps data rate and sub-millisecond latency over 3D network coverage. To achieve such goals, acquiring accurate location information of the mobile terminals is becoming extremely useful, not only for location-based services but also for improving wireless communication performance in various ways such as channel estimation, beam alignment, medium access control, routing, and network optimization. On the other hand, the advancement of communication technologies also brings new opportunities to greatly improve the localization performance, as exemplified by the anticipated centimeter-level localization accuracy in 6G by ultra massive MIMO and mmWave technologies. In this regard, a unified study on integrated localization and communication (ILAC) is necessary to unlock the full potential of wireless networks for the best utilization of network infrastructure and radio resources for dual purposes. While there are extensive literatures on wireless localization or communications separately, the research on ILAC is still in its infancy. Therefore, this article aims to give a tutorial overview on ILAC towards 6G wireless networks. After a holistic survey on wireless localization basics, we present the state-of-the-art results on how wireless localization and communication inter-play with each other in various network layers, together with the main architectures and techniques for localization and communication co-design in current 2D and future 3D networks with aerial-ground integration. Finally, we outline some promising future research directions for ILAC.