Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) for U.S. Defense

Turn communications infrastructure into a new layer of situational awareness

Drone proliferation, increasing sophistication, and increased accessibility have created significant threats to surveillance and reconnaissance efforts.

Ericsson Federal’s network-as-a-sensor can help defense and government organizations build on existing 5G infrastructure and transform the network into a sensor grid that not only transmits data but actively senses its surroundings.

Using radio signal reflections, time-delay analysis, and AI-driven pattern recognition, the network can detect objects such as drones, ground vehicles, or even personnel moving through its environment.

The result is an additional layer of situational awareness that can support faster threat recognition, smarter perimeter defense, and better protection for critical assets—turning communications into intel.

What is Integrated Sensing and Communication?

Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) combines wireless communications and environmental sensing within the same network infrastructure.

Radio signals transmitted by mobile networks interact with objects in the surrounding environment. By analyzing how those signals are reflected, a sensing-enabled network can determine characteristics such as an object’s presence, location, movement, speed, and direction.

This means communications infrastructure can take on an additional role: the network becomes a sensor.

Unlike positioning technologies that depend on a connected device, ISAC can also detect passive or non-connected objects. This capability is particularly relevant for defense and government missions where an object of interest may not be connected to the network or intentionally transmitting an identifiable electronic signal.

 

Explore the technology behind ISAC

Ericsson researchers are advancing Integrated Sensing and Communication as networks evolve from 5G Advanced toward 6G.

Explore Ericsson’s technical overview of Integrated Sensing and Communication >

 

A new layer of situational awareness

Defense and government organizations rely on multiple sensors and intelligence sources to understand complex operational environments.

ISAC has the potential to complement these systems by adding distributed sensing capabilities across communications infrastructure.

Instead of treating communications and sensing as entirely separate infrastructures, ISAC can leverage elements of the mobile network—including sites, antennas, spectrum, backhaul, and other network resources—to support both connectivity and sensing.

For federal agencies, this creates the potential for a scalable sensing layer that can provide additional awareness across military installations, critical infrastructure, borders, transportation corridors, and other mission environments.

 

EFTG ISAC Capabilities Sheet

Explore ISAC for Defense and National Security

ISAC: Connected Sensing. Unmatched Awareness. Accelerated Decision-to-Action.

Discover how Ericsson Federal is advancing network sensing to transform 5G infrastructure into a distributed sensing layer for force protection, counter-UAS, border security, critical infrastructure, and other national security missions.

Read the ISAC Capabilities Brief >

 

Mission applications for ISAC

Low-altitude airspace awareness

The rapid proliferation of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) is creating new challenges for military installations, government facilities, airports, and critical infrastructure.

ISAC can help detect and track airborne objects—including drones that are not connected to the network or actively broadcasting their location—providing another source of information for low-altitude airspace awareness.

Explore Ericsson’s research on drone detection with ISAC >

Installation and perimeter protection

Military installations and government facilities often encompass large, complex environments.

Network-based sensing can provide an additional layer of persistent awareness by detecting movement and changes within designated areas and providing sensing information to authorized mission applications.

Critical infrastructure protection

Energy facilities, communications infrastructure, transportation systems, ports, and other critical assets require increasingly sophisticated monitoring.

ISAC can extend sensing across these environments by leveraging communications infrastructure that may already be deployed, providing an additional source of information to existing security and monitoring systems.

Border and wide-area monitoring

Distributed network infrastructure creates the potential for sensing across larger geographic areas.

By coordinating sensing across multiple network sites, ISAC can complement existing surveillance technologies and provide another layer of awareness for border security and other wide-area missions.

 

Extend the value of communications infrastructure

Traditional sensing deployments can require dedicated sensors, sites, connectivity, backhaul, power, and supporting infrastructure.

ISAC introduces another model.

Depending on mission requirements and deployment architecture, communications and sensing capabilities can share elements of the underlying infrastructure.

For defense and government agencies, this creates the potential to increase the operational value of network investments while reducing the need for entirely separate sensing infrastructure.

The network isn’t just carrying mission data. It can become another source of mission data.

 

Distributed sensing for greater resilience

A communications network also offers something an individual sensor cannot: geographic distribution.

Multiple network sites can observe an environment from different locations. Combining sensing information from multiple points can improve detection, localization, tracking, and resilience while reducing dependence on a single sensing location.

For complex defense and government environments, this distributed approach can provide an important additional layer of persistent situational awareness.

 

From 5G to 6G

ISAC is expected to become an important capability as wireless technology evolves toward 6G, but agencies don’t have to wait for 6G to begin exploring its potential.

Current 5G technologies—including massive MIMO radios, advanced signal processing, edge computing, and AI—provide building blocks for early sensing implementations and demonstrations.

As wireless standards and technology evolve, sensing can become increasingly integrated into the network itself.

For federal agencies, this provides an opportunity to evaluate mission requirements and sensing use cases today while preparing network architectures for the capabilities that will emerge with 6G.

 

Preparing federal networks for the sensing era

Future defense networks will need to do more than move information. They will increasingly need to help missions understand the environment in which they operate.

Integrated Sensing and Communication represents an important step toward that future—bringing connectivity, sensing, distributed computing, and intelligence together within a common network architecture.

Ericsson Federal is working with U.S. defense and government organizations to explore how advanced network technologies can support secure, resilient, mission-ready communications and sensing.