Robust Integrated Sensing and Communication Beamforming for Dual-functional Radar and Communications: Method and Insights

TL;DR

This paper introduces a robust beamforming method for dual-functional radar and communication systems that effectively balances sensing and communication tasks despite imperfect channel information.

Contribution

It proposes a novel robust beamforming design for DFRC base stations, providing insights into optimality and tradeoffs in integrated sensing and communications.

Findings

The proposed beamformer achieves effective target detection and communication performance.

Closed-form expressions and optimality conditions are derived for the beamformer.

Simulation results confirm the robustness and efficiency of the method.

Abstract

This work presents a novel robust beamforming design dedicated for dual-functional radar and communication (DFRC) base stations (BSs) in the context of integrated sensing and communications (ISAC). The architecture is intended for circumstances with imperfect channel state information (CSI). Our suggested approach demonstrates several tradeoffs for joint radar-communication deployment. Due to the DFRC nature of the design, the beamformer can simultaneously point towards an intended target, while optimizing communication quality of service. We unveil several insights regarding closed form expressions, as well as optimality of the proposed beamformer. Lastly, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed ISAC beamformer.