Wireless systems beyond 5G evolve towards embracing both sensing and communication, resulting in increased convergence of the digital and the physical world. The existence of fused digital-physical realms raises critical questions regarding temporal ordering, causality, and the synchronization of events. This paper addresses the temporal challenges arising from the fact that the wireless infrastructure becomes an entity with multisensory perception. With the growing reliance on real-time interactions and applications such as digital twins, extended reality, and the metaverse, the need for accurate timestamping and temporal forensics becomes crucial. The paper introduces a model that incorporates Temporal Windows of Integration (TWI) to emulate human multisensory perception and discusses the implications for setting timing constraints in real-time applications and enabling temporal forensics. The analysis explores trade-offs, probabilities, and bounds for simultaneity and causality violation in the context of wireless systems evolving towards perceptive networks. This work underscores the significance of timestamping in the evolving wireless landscape, provide insights into system-level implications, and points out new research avenues for systems that combine sensing and communications.

翻译：超越5G的无线系统正朝着融合感知与通信的方向演进，导致数字世界与物理世界的深度交汇。虚实融合场域的存在引发了关于时间顺序、因果律及事件同步的关键问题。本文聚焦于无线基础设施成为多感官感知实体所引发的时间维挑战。随着数字孪生、扩展现实及元宇宙等实时交互应用日益普及，精准时间戳标记与时间取证的重要性愈发凸显。本文提出了一种融合时间整合窗口（TWI）模型以模拟人类多感官感知机制，并探讨了该模型对实时应用时间约束设定及时间取证能力的影响。通过系统分析，本文揭示了面向感知网络演进的无线系统中同时性与因果律违反的权衡关系、概率界限及约束边界。本研究强调了时间戳技术在无线系统演进中的核心作用，揭示了系统层面的架构影响，并为融合感知与通信的新型系统指明了前沿研究方向。