T6 – From RF Measurements to Digital Twins: A Multimodal Framework for AI-Assisted Channel Modeling in 6G Systems

Presenter: Camillo Gentile, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), USA

Abstract: Next-generation wireless systems, including 6G and integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), require channel models that capture increasingly complex interactions between radio propagation, environment geometry, and dynamic targets. Traditional channel modeling approaches based solely on RF measurements or purely data-driven methods are often insufficient to address these challenges, as they either lack semantic context or physical interpretability.

This tutorial introduces a unified, measurement-driven framework for channel modeling that integrates multimodal sensing, digital twin representations, and AI-assisted analysis. The approach combines synchronized RF measurements with complementary sensing modalities such as camera and LiDAR to construct spatio-temporally aligned digital twins of the propagation environment. These representations enable direct association of multipath components with physical objects and support automated interpretation, clustering, and modeling of radio channels.

The tutorial provides a structured overview of modern channel sounding systems, multimodal data acquisition and registration, digital twin construction, and AI-assisted channel interpretation and prediction. It further discusses how these techniques enable both physics-guided and data-driven modeling approaches, including ray-tracing calibration, quasi-deterministic modeling, and emerging neural spatial channel representations.

By bridging measurement, sensing, and machine learning, this tutorial equips participants with a comprehensive understanding of emerging methodologies for scalable, interpretable, and measurement-grounded channel modeling in future wireless systems.

Presenter’s Bio:

Camillo Gentile:

Camillo Gentile (Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA, in 2001. He joined the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, USA, in 2001, where he is currently a research engineer in the Communications Technology Laboratory and leads the NextG Channel Measurement and Modeling Project. From 2021 to 2023, he initiated and led the Radio Access and Propagation Metrology Group. Dr. Gentile has been actively engaged in RF channel propagation measurement and modeling research since 2005, with a focus on millimeter-wave, sub-terahertz, and emerging 6G systems. His recent work emphasizes multimodal RF channel sounding, digital twin assisted channel modeling, and AI-assisted interpretation of large-scale measurement datasets for integrated sensing and communications applications.

He has coauthored more than 130 total peer-reviewed publications, including over 60 peer reviewed journaland magazine articles, and is a coauthor of two books: Geolocation Techniques (Springer, 2012) and Radio Propagation Measurements and Channel Modeling: Best Practices in Millimeter Wave and Sub-Terahertz Frequencies (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Dr. Gentile has served as co-chair of W6: International Workshop on Advances in Positioning and Location-Enabled Communications (APLEC 2010) at IEEE PIMRC 2010, and as sole chair of the W24: Workshop on Wireless Propagation Channels for 5G and Beyond at IEEE ICC 2022. More recently, he has served as Guest Editor for the special issue “Measurement and Characterization of THz Systems and Their Key Radio Components” in IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology (May 2025).