This study aims to present a comparative analysis of existing waveforms for Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) in vehicular environments. Further, a novel multicarrier framework based on Generalized Adaptive Spreading Modulation (GASM) is proposed for ISAC-enabled vehicular environments. The GASM waveform offers symbol spreading in both time and frequency domains with tunable spreading parameters, which allows the proposed GASM-based waveform to adapt according to the rapid time-frequency variations of the fading channel and combat the most common system impairments such as carrier frequency offset (CFO) and symbol timing offset (STO). The GASM scheme is the generalization of various existing waveforms such as Orthogonal frequencydivision multiplexing (OFDM), Fractional Fourier Transform based OFDM (FrFT-based OFDM), and Orthogonal Chirp Division Multiplexing (OCDM). The proposed GASM-based ISAC system is evaluated in terms of average bit error rate (ABER) for communication and ambiguity function (AF) for range and Doppler capabilities. The performance of GASMbased ISAC system is compared with existing waveforms, i.e., OFDM, FrFT-based OFDM, OCDM, Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing (GFDM), and Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) modulation. It is observed from the simulation results that the proposed GASM scheme outperforms all existing waveforms due to its superior competence in handling fading and synchronization errors.
I. ISAC FOR VEHICLES: MOTIVATION AND USER CASESR ECENT years have witnessed the rise of smart era wherein every system is aiming to become autonomous and self-sustaining for improving the human lifestyle. This booming intelligence in technology is suffusing the transport infrastructure to materialize futuristic applications such as D. Singh and T. Myllylä are affiliated with