For decades, mobile networks have served a singular purpose: transmitting data between locations. Yet Samsung envisions a fundamentally different role for the same infrastructure—one that would let networks perceive their surroundings by analysing how radio signals interact with the physical environment, eliminating the need for dedicated cameras or sensors.

This vision centres on Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC), a technology being developed as part of the industry's push toward 6G. Samsung recently partnered with Verizon to test the concept at a live sporting event in Dallas, where they deployed mobile network infrastructure to track crowd size and movement patterns.

"In a nutshell, ISAC reframes the whole mobile communication system as a distributed sensing platform," says Sanil Ramachandran, Director of Technology at Samsung Electronics America.

Repurposing existing radio signals

The foundation of ISAC lies in signals that mobile networks already emit continuously. When radio waves travel between devices and base stations, they encounter buildings, vehicles, people and other physical objects that alter their characteristics. Rather than treating these alterations as interference, ISAC technology harnesses them as sensing data.

Ramachandran elaborates: "Traditionally, in these systems, you transmit radio signals. It bounces off whatever environment they are in, whether it's a building, a nearby car, or even a drone flying by. In ISAC, the integrated sensing and communication system, it reframes the whole idea of this communication, and it tries to leverage those impairments to understand and be aware of the surroundings."

For enterprises, this approach offers a significant advantage: extracting additional value from infrastructure already built for connectivity. Rather than deploying separate systems for each sensing application, organisations could potentially rely on the mobile network itself for certain use cases.

From connectivity to crowd intelligence

The Dallas demonstration showcased ISAC's practical potential. Samsung and Verizon used commercial 5G devices, CBRS spectrum, Samsung's virtualised RAN technology and an AI-powered ISAC application to estimate crowd density and movement in near real time.

Venue operators typically rely on camera systems and associated analytics to monitor crowds. ISAC offers an alternative approach. "You're using the existing mobile communication infrastructure to generate similar heat maps without actually using any cameras," Ramachandran notes.

Crucially, the technology does not identify individuals. Instead, it provides aggregate information about crowd density—whether an area is densely packed, moderately crowded or sparsely populated—displayed as a heat map rather than identifying specific people.

Expanding beyond stadiums

Samsung sees applications stretching across multiple sectors. "The use cases are plenty," Ramachandran states. "It could be civilian, enterprise and even military use cases."

Potential applications include detecting and identifying drones and unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as identifying intrusions. In manufacturing and industrial settings, ISAC could alert operators when people or objects enter restricted zones. Vehicle-to-everything systems represent another avenue, where sensing capabilities would provide connected vehicles with additional environmental awareness.

AI as the computational bottleneck

Converting radio signals into actionable business intelligence presents substantial technical challenges. The volume of data generated by mobile infrastructure is immense, requiring significant processing capacity to transform raw signal changes into meaningful insights.

In the Dallas trial, Samsung Research America employed an AI-based ISAC application to process network data and translate radio frequency variations into crowd density estimates. However, the technology remains in development. AI models require continuous training and retraining to maintain accuracy, and the computational demands are substantial.

Ramachandran acknowledges the challenge: "It takes a lot of compute to learn and relearn and then retrain the algorithms to make sure that we have the accuracy of the detection."

Validating 6G concepts on 5G networks

While ISAC is being developed as part of the 6G roadmap, Samsung is not waiting for next-generation networks to become operational. Instead, the company is testing ISAC capabilities on existing 5G infrastructure to gather insights that could inform future standards.

"What we're trying to do is we are trying to validate the technology concepts over 5G so that we take these learnings and make sure that when you standardise the 6G with ISAC, these learnings can be useful," Ramachandran concludes.