Enabling Intelligent Connectivity: A Survey of Secure ISAC in 6G Networks

The rapid growth of intelligent sensing capabilities and super computation power in 6G mobile communication systems has facilitated their application in diverse domains such as smart health, smart factories, and the industrial Internet of Things. Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC), as a core technology, has merged with artificial intelligence (AI) to enable intelligent connectivity, leading to a paradigm shift in traditional communication modes. This paper presents a visionary design for an ISAC-oriented unified IoT architecture that integrates software-defined communication and super-intelligent agents. By leveraging dynamic adaptability, self-learning, and optimization, the ISAC system can intelligently and flexibly respond to evolving requirements and environments. The architecture is redefined into three layers: the hardware layer, the omniscient layer, and the application layer. Furthermore, a retrospective survey of ISAC technology development over the past decade is conducted, highlighting new design principles for AI-empowered networks and multi-modals that support “intelligent connectivity” across various application scenarios and reinforce the security of ISAC. This paper categorizes the related works according to the different layer structures of the proposed architecture, and some important physical and machine learning models are introduced. Additionally, we summarize the current technological bottlenecks associated with ISAC and propose future research directions and potential solutions that lay the foundation for the future development of secure and intelligent communication networks.