SHERIDAN, WYOMING - April 4, 2026 - Network vendors, radio access technology teams, and standards-track engineers now have a concrete architectural reference for building sensing capabilities directly into 6G systems, as ETSI's Industry Specification Group on Integrated Sensing and Communications has released GR ISC 003-a report that defines the structural foundations required to merge RF sensing with cellular communications at the system and RAN levels.
What GR ISC 003 defines
The report introduces a 6G ISAC system reference model designed to support all sensing modes previously identified in ETSI's use-case and requirements work. Those modes span monostatic, bistatic, and multi-static configurations, covering scenarios where both the network infrastructure and user equipment act as sensing participants. The reference model is not a conceptual sketch-it maps out required functional blocks including sensing service control, sensing data collection and processing, mobility management of sensing entities, charging mechanisms, and the exposure of sensing results within a secure, privacy-preserving framework.
The scope of the document is deliberately broad enough to serve as a cross-layer guide. By addressing both the core system architecture and the RAN in a single report, ETSI ISG ISAC gives implementers a unified view of where sensing integrates into the broader 6G stack, rather than treating radio and system layers as disconnected design spaces.
RAN architecture requirements and open challenges
On the radio access side, GR ISC 003 catalogs new RAN functionalities needed to support RF sensing operations. These include sensing task coordination, measurement configuration, sensing-specific data processing pipelines, and optional on-device or network-side sensing data storage. The report explicitly flags where current RAN designs fall short: interference mitigation between sensing and communication waveforms, power control balancing, sensing signal design constraints, and the flexible resource allocation demanded by simultaneous ISAC operations all represent engineering problems without settled solutions.
The report also identifies 17 key challenges distributed across system architecture, RAN architecture, and lower-layer RAN domains and proposes potential approaches for each. Topics flagged for further study include multi-operator sensing coordination, CN-RAN interface requirements, and the integration of computing resources, security controls, privacy enforcement, and sustainability metrics into the ISAC operational model. These open items are being carried forward in the group's upcoming work program.
Relationship to 3GPP 6G standardization
ETSI is a founding member of 3GPP and a primary contributor to global wireless standards. GR ISC 003 is timed to feed directly into 3GPP's early exploration of 6G ISAC system and RAN architecture, giving the partnership project an ETSI-grounded reference as it begins formal study. The architectural work in this report positions ISAC not as a peripheral sensing add-on but as a design constraint that must be accommodated from the initial 6G architecture phase-shaping decisions on interface definitions, protocol design, and spectrum resource management before those choices become locked in standards documents.
The convergence of communication and sensing into a single air interface is a defining characteristic of 6G relative to 5G, and GR ISC 003 provides the first consolidated ETSI architectural statement on how that convergence should be structured across both the system and radio access layers.
Business impact
Telecom equipment vendors and chipset developers building toward 6G product roadmaps must now align their RAN and system architecture planning with the functional decomposition outlined in GR ISC 003. Sensing service control, data collection pipelines, and privacy-preserving result exposure are no longer aspirational features-they are documented architectural requirements that procurement and product strategy teams should treat as baseline specifications when evaluating 6G technology investments through 2026 and beyond.
Network operators and enterprise connectivity planners assessing 6G sensing use cases-ranging from industrial monitoring to smart infrastructure-can use this report to scope integration requirements earlier in their technology roadmaps. The explicit treatment of multi-operator sensing and CN-RAN coordination as open challenges signals that operator-level standardization agreements and bilateral coordination frameworks will be necessary before large-scale ISAC deployments become commercially viable, directly affecting vendor selection timelines and partnership structures in the near term.