Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces for Integrated Sensing and Communications: A Survey
Abstract
The rapid development of sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks requires seamless integration of communication and sensing to support ubiquitous intelligence and real-time, high-reliability applications. Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) has emerged as a key solution for achieving this convergence, offering joint utilization of spectral, hardware, and computing resources. However, realizing high-performance ISAC remains challenging due to environmental line-of-sight (LoS) blockage, limited spatial resolution, and the inherent coverage asymmetry and resource coupling between sensing and communication. Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs), featuring low-cost, energy-efficient, and programmable electromagnetic reconfiguration, provide a promising solution to overcome these limitations. This article presents a comprehensive overview of IRS-aided wireless sensing and ISAC technologies, including IRS architectures, target detection and estimation techniques, beamforming designs, and performance metrics. It further explores IRS-enabled new opportunities for more efficient performance balancing, coexistence, and networking in ISAC systems, focuses on current design bottlenecks, and outlines future research directions. This article aims to offer a unified design framework that guides the development of practical and scalable IRS-aided ISAC systems for the next-generation wireless network.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2511.10990,
title = {Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces for Integrated Sensing and Communications: A Survey},
author = {Qingqing Wu and Qiaoyan Peng and Ziheng Zhang and Xiaodan Shao and Yang Liu and Yifan Jiang and Yapeng Zhao and Yanze Zhu and Yilong Chen and Zixiang Ren and Jie Xu and Wen Chen and Rui Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.10990},
year = {2025}
}