TY - JOUR EP - 11060 IS - 12 AV - public TI - Frame Structure and Protocol Design for Sensing-Assisted NR-V2X Communications SN - 1536-1233 N1 - This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions. ID - discovery10191484 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/tmc.2024.3389697 N2 - The emergence of the fifth-generation (5G) New Radio (NR) technology has provided unprecedented opportunities for vehicle-to-everything (V2X) networks, enabling enhanced quality of services. However, high-mobility V2X networks require frequent handovers and acquiring accurate channel state information (CSI) necessitates the utilization of pilot signals, leading to increased overhead and reduced communication throughput. To address this challenge, integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) techniques have been employed at the base station (gNB) within vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) networks, aiming to minimize overhead and improve spectral efficiency. In this study, we propose novel frame structures that incorporate ISAC signals for three crucial stages in the NR-V2X system: initial access, connected mode, and beam failure and recovery. These new frame structures employ 75% fewer pilots and reduce reference signals by 43.24%, capitalizing on the sensing capability of ISAC signals. Through extensive link-level simulations, we demonstrate that our proposed approach enables faster beam establishment during initial access, higher throughput and more precise beam tracking in connected mode with reduced overhead, and expedited detection and recovery from beam failures. Furthermore, the numerical results obtained from our simulations showcase enhanced spectrum efficiency, improved communication performance and minimal overhead, validating the effectiveness of the proposed ISAC-based techniques in NR V2I networks. Y1 - 2024/12// A1 - Li, Yunxin A1 - Liu, Fan A1 - Du, Zhen A1 - Yuan, Weijie A1 - Shi, Qingjiang A1 - Masouros, Christos JF - IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) SP - 11045 VL - 23 ER -