The demonstration entitled “CHIRP: Distributed ISAC with Unsynchronized FMCW Sensors,” presented at the one6G Summit 2026 in London, showcases a distributed deployment comprising three independent, unsynchronized FMCW sensors. The demonstration received the summit’s Best Demo Award.
01Objective
The objective of the demonstration is to show how a distributed sensing system can exploit chirp signals alone to detect multiple sensing nodes through their mutual interference, separate the contributions from the different sources, and leverage them to enhance sensing performance.
From the perspective of an individual radar node, the sensor independently performs conventional monostatic sensing while simultaneously detecting, identifying, and estimating the two additional bistatic links established with the other nodes. As a result, each node can asynchronously exploit two additional sensing channels to improve its reconstruction of the surrounding environment, without requiring any prior information exchange, synchronization, or coordination among the sensors.
02What was shown live
The demonstration displayed in real time the monostatic sensing outputs of all three sensors, together with the measurements associated with the three bistatic links established within the distributed system. Each bistatic link produced two sensing traces, corresponding to the observations obtained independently from each of its two participating nodes.
The example below shows the same system in an indoor room. Three sensors, marked in red, blue and green, are placed on tripods at different points of the room and operate without any synchronization or coordination. Combining each node's monostatic measurements with the bistatic links it observes from the other two, the system reconstructs a top view of the environment: the outline of the room and the main objects inside it. The coloured markers identify the same sensors in both images, and the dashed lines join the three node pairs that form the bistatic links.
Scene
Reconstruction03Why it matters
The demonstration therefore illustrates how sensing performance at an individual terminal can be enhanced by jointly exploiting its local monostatic measurements and the bistatic estimates derived from signals transmitted by neighboring nodes.
Beyond this sensing enhancement, the proposed system also demonstrates the capability to detect and identify surrounding nodes without prior coordination or association, a feature of particular relevance to autonomous driving, robotic systems, defence applications and other distributed autonomous scenarios.
04Recognition
“CHIRP: Distributed ISAC with Unsynchronized FMCW Sensors” received the Best Demo Award of the one6G Summit 2026, held under the theme Connected Intelligence for 6G at King’s College London.
