RSMA-Assisted Multi-Functional 6G: Integrated Sensing, Communication, and Powering

Integrated sensing, communication, and powering (ISCAP) has emerged as a promising solution for enabling multi-functionality in 6G networks. However, it poses a significant challenge in the design of multi-functional waveforms that must jointly consider communication, sensing, and powering performance. In this paper, we propose a novel rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA)-enabled multi-functional ISCAP network, where RSMA facilitates the use of communication signals to simultaneously achieve all three functionalities. Based on the proposed system model, we investigate the beamforming optimization problem to explore the performance trade-offs among communication, sensing, and power transfer. To efficiently solve this problem, we develop a novel ISCAP-extragradient (ISCAP-EG) algorithm, which transforms the original problem into a sequence of convex subproblems, reformulates the dual problem as a variational inequality, and solves it using the EG method. Numerical results show that the proposed ISCAP-EG algorithm achieves performance equivalent to that of the conventional successive convex approximation (SCA)-based method, while significantly reducing simulation time. Moreover, the RSMA-enabled multi-functional ISCAP network enhance the performance trade-off compared with the conventional space-division multiple access (SDMA)-based scheme, highlighting RSMA as a promising technique for advancing multi-functional ISCAP development in 6G.