Optimal beamwidth design of periodic reference signals for integrated sensing and communications in cellular V2X networks✩

Chunlei Sun; Xuqing Liu; Linpei Li; Yuzheng Ren; Dongzhe Li; Haijun Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.dcan.2026.03.009

›› 2026, Vol. 12 ›› Issue (3) :550 -560. DOI: 10.1016/j.dcan.2026.03.009

Research Article

research-article

Optimal beamwidth design of periodic reference signals for integrated sensing and communications in cellular V2X networks^✩

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^a School of Computer and Communication Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing , 100083, Beijing, China

^b Beijing Academy of Science and Technology , 100094, Beijing, China

^* E-mail addresses: chunleisun@ustb.edu.cn (C. Sun),

liuxuqing@bjast.ac.cn (X. Liu),

linpeili@ustb.edu.cn (L. Li),

renyuzheng@ustb.edu.cn (Y. Ren),

15373056536@163.com (D. Li),

zhanghaijun@ustb.edu.cn (H. Zhang).

Chunlei Sun received her PhD degree from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) in 2021. She is currently a Lecturer in the School of Computer and Communication Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing. In 2022, she was awarded the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by the Beijing Association for Science and Technology (BAST). Her research interests include integrated sensing and communications, vehicular networks, and B5G/6G networks, etc.

Xuqing Liu received his PhD degree in Information and Communication Engineering from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) in 2023. He is currently a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Science and Technology (BJAST). His research interests include intelligent sensing, applications of large language models, multimodal large models, etc.

Linpei Li received the PhD degree from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2021. She is currently a Lecturer with the University of Science and Technology Beijing, China. Her current research interests include energy efficient UAV-assisted communications, mobile edge computing, and intelligent resource allocation.

Yuzheng Ren received her BS degree and PhD degree from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China, in 2017 and 2023, respectively. She is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Computer and Communication Engineering and Shunde Innovation School, University of Science and Technology Beijing. Her research interests include intelligent networks, AI-native networks, and network-computing convergence.

Dongzhe Li is currently pursuing the MS degree in Communication Engineering at the University of Science and Technology Beijing, China. His research interests include wireless communications, machine learning, integrated sensing and communication.

Haijun Zhang is currently a Full Professor at the University of Science and Technology (USTB). He is a Fellow of IEEE. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He has served as Track Co-Chair for VTC Fall 2022 and WCNC 2020/2021, Symposium Chair for Globecom’19, TPC Co-Chair for the INFOCOM 2018 Workshop, and General Co-Chair for GameNets’16. He serves or has served as an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering. He received the IEEE CSIM Technical Committee Best Journal Paper Award in 2018, the IEEE ComSoc Young Author Best Paper Award in 2017, and the IEEE ComSoc Asia-Pacific Best Young Researcher Award in 2019.

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Abstract

Recently, the technique of Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) has gained great attentions and is expected to enable more advanced applications in cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X). We intend to use the periodical reference signals, such as the synchronization signals in 5G, to actively detect targets at different azimuths via beam scanning. This paper mainly aims to optimize the beamwidth of these reference signals in cellular-V2X to facilitate both sensing and communication functions. Firstly, to address the issue of insufficient beam duration for accurate estimation of Doppler and the corresponding velocity as well, we combine multiple beam scanning cycles to support improved sensing performance. In this context, an innovative beamwidth optimization algorithm is proposed. Specifically, we deduce the Fisher Information Matrix (FIM) of the sufficient statistic associated with target azimuths. Considering the randomness of the target position, we build the objective function based on the expected trace of the derived FIM. Additionally, we formulate the constraint of channel coherent time for efficient communications. It is worth noting that this is the first time to optimize the beamwidth of periodic reference signals for joint communication and sensing in cellular V2X. Experimental results show that the optimal beamwidth varies with the steering azimuth of antennas and reaches its maximum when the beam points at the direction perpendicular to the roadside.

Keywords

Integrated sensing and communications / Cellular V2X / Periodic reference signals / Beamwidth optimization / 5G

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Chunlei Sun, Xuqing Liu, Linpei Li, Yuzheng Ren, Dongzhe Li, Haijun Zhang. Optimal beamwidth design of periodic reference signals for integrated sensing and communications in cellular V2X networks^✩. , 2026, 12 (3) : 550-560 DOI:10.1016/j.dcan.2026.03.009

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CRediT authorship contribution statement

Chunlei Sun: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Funding acquisition, Data curation, Conceptualization; Xuqing Liu: Writing – original draft; Linpei Li: Data curation; Yuzheng Ren: Data curation; Dongzhe Li: Data curation; Haijun Zhang: Supervision.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 62201032), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. FRF-TP-22-045A1), and the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by BAST (Grant No. BYESS2023306).

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