{"ID":2841525,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10990","arxiv_id":"2511.10990","title":"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.","short_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...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10990","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.10990v1","authors":"[\"Qingqing Wu\",\"Qiaoyan Peng\",\"Ziheng Zhang\",\"Xiaodan Shao\",\"Yang Liu\",\"Yifan Jiang\",\"Yapeng Zhao\",\"Yanze Zhu\",\"Yilong Chen\",\"Zixiang Ren\",\"Jie Xu\",\"Wen Chen\",\"Rui Zhang\"]","published":"2025-11-14T06:26:40Z","proceeding":"eess.SP","tasks":"[\"eess.SP\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}