Pinching Antenna-Assisted ISAC with Waveguide Mode Selection
Information Theory
Summary
The authors propose a new system for combined sensing and communication that allows the antenna to adaptively select different modes instead of using fixed receiver positions. Their approach optimizes several factors like waveguide modes and antenna placements to improve the sensing signal quality while meeting communication needs for multiple users. They developed an algorithm to solve the complex optimization problem efficiently. Results show that their method outperforms traditional fixed setups by better using spatial and modal flexibility to maintain sensing accuracy even when communication demands are high.
Authors
Ruotong Zhao, Yijia Zhang, Shaokang Hu, Derrick Wing Kwan Ng
Abstract
Conventional pinching antenna (PA)-assisted integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) architectures typically assume static receiver locations or predetermined receive waveguides, thereby underutilizing the inherent spatial degrees of freedom. This paper proposes a novel mode-selectable PA-assisted ISAC framework to maximize the post-combining sensing signal-to-noise ratio while satisfying multi-user quality-of-service constraints by jointly optimizing the waveguide mode selection, transmit beamforming, and transmit/receive PA positions. To tackle the resulting mixed-integer nonconvex optimization problem, we develop a low-complexity block-coordinate descent algorithm that leverages a penalty-based majorization-minimization method to achieve high-quality suboptimal solutions. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed design significantly outperforms both traditional PA and fixed-antenna benchmarks by synergistically harnessing spatial adaptability and modal reconfigurability. In particular, the mode-selectable design enables the coordinated optimization of transmit/receive operations and sensing-communication resource allocation, thereby maintaining sensing robustness under stringent communication requirements.