A near-field integrated sensing, positioning, and communication (ISPAC) framework is proposed, where a base station (BS) simultaneously serves multiple communication users and carries out target sensing and positioning. A novel double-array structure is proposed to enable the near-field ISPAC at the BS. Specifically, a small-scale assisting transceiver (AT) is attached to the large-scale main transceiver (MT) to empower the communication system with the ability of sensing and positioning. Based on the proposed framework, the joint angle and distance Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) is first derived. Then, the CRB is minimized subject to the minimum communication rate requirement in both downlink and uplink ISPAC scenarios: 1) For downlink ISPAC, a downlink target positioning algorithm is proposed and a penalty dual decomposition (PDD)-based double-loop algorithm is developed to tackle the non-convex optimization problem. 2) For uplink ISPAC, an uplink target positioning algorithm is proposed and an efficient alternating optimization algorithm is conceived to solve the non-convex CRB minimization problem with coupled user communication and target probing design. Both proposed optimization algorithms can converge to a stationary point of the CRB minimization problem. Numerical results show that: 1) The proposed ISPAC system can locate the target in both angle and distance domains merely relying on single BS and limited bandwidths; and 2) the positioning performance achieved by the hybrid-analog-and-digital ISPAC approaches that achieved by fully digital ISPAC when the communication rate requirement is not stringent.

Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is a promising candidate technology for the upcoming sixth-generation (6G) communication system for its ability to manipulate the wireless communication environment by controlling the coefficients of reflection elements (REs). However, since the RIS usually consists of a large number of passive REs, the pilot overhead for channel estimation in the RIS-aided system is prohibitively high. In this article, the channel estimation problem for an RIS-aided multiuser multiple-input–single-output (MISO) communication system with clustered users is investigated. First, to describe the correlated feature for RIS–user channels, a beam-domain channel model is developed for RIS–user channels. Then, a pilot reuse strategy is put forward to reduce the pilot overhead and decompose the channel estimation problem into several subproblems. Finally, by leveraging the correlated nature of RIS–user channels, an eigenspace projection (EP) algorithm is proposed to solve each subproblem, respectively. Simulation results show that the proposed EP channel estimation scheme can achieve accurate channel estimation with lower pilot overhead than existing schemes.

In this work, a multiple waveguide pinching antenna system (PASS) assisted integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system is proposed, where the base station (BS) is equipped with transmitting pinching antennas (PAs) and receiving uniform linear array (ULA) antennas. The PASS-transmitting- ULA-receiving (PTUR) BS transmits the communication and sensing signals through the PAs on waveguides and collects the echo sensing signals with the mounted ULA. Based on this configuration, a target sensing Cramèr–Rao Bound (CRB) minimization problem is formulated under communication quality-of-service (QoS) constraints, power budget constraint, and PA deployment constraints. To tackle the resulting non-convex problem, an alternating optimization (AO) framework is developed, which decomposes the problem into a digital beamforming sub-problem and a pinching beamforming sub-problem. The digital beamforming design is optimized via semidefinite relaxation (SDR), while the PA deployment is updated using penalty-based method. Simulation results demonstrate that: 1) the proposed PASS assisted ISAC framework achieves superior performance over benchmark schemes; and 2) the PASS assisted ISAC is less affected by stringent communication constraints compared to conventional MIMO-ISAC, and benefits from increasing the number of waveguides and PAs per waveguide.

The development of sixth-generation (6G) communication technologies is confronted with the significant challenge of spectrum resource shortage. To alleviate this issue, we propose a novel simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS) aided multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) cognitive radio (CR) system. Specifically, the underlying secondary network in the proposed CR system reuses the same frequency resources occupied by the primary network with the help of the STAR-RIS. The secondary network sum rate maximization problem is first formulated for the STAR-RIS aided MIMO CR system. The adoption of STAR-RIS necessitates an intricate beamforming design for the considered system due to its large number of coupled coefficients. The block coordinate descent method is employed to address the formulated optimization problem. In each iteration, the beamformers at the secondary base station (SBS) are optimized by solving a quadratically constrained quadratic program (QCQP) problem. Concurrently, the STAR-RIS passive beamforming problem is resolved using tailored algorithms designed for the two phase-shift models: 1) For the independent phase-shift model , a successive convex approximation-based algorithm is proposed. 2) For the coupled phase-shift model , a penalty dual decomposition-based algorithm is conceived, in which the phase shifts and amplitudes of the STAR-RIS elements are optimized using closed-form solutions. Simulation results show that: 1) The proposed STAR-RIS aided CR communication framework can significantly enhance the sum rate of the secondary system. 2) The coupled phase-shift model results in limited performance degradation compared to the independent phase-shift model.

A simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS) aided communication system is investigated. A robust joint beamforming design problem under the imperfect channel state information (CSI) is formulated to maximize the weighted sum of the Jain’s fairness index and the normalized system sum rate. To solve this non-convex problem, an alternating optimization (AO) algorithm is proposed, which leverages the S-Procedure, successive convex approximation (SCA), and semidefinite relaxation (SDR). Simulation results demonstrate that with proposed algorithm: 1) various trade-offs between sum rate and user fairness can be achieved; 2) a larger trade-off region can be achieved by adopting STAR-RIS compared to conventional RIS; and 3) the performance degradation caused by imperfect CSI is less than 7% with our proposed robust beamforming approach.

A simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS) aided integrated sensing, computing, and communication (ISCC) Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) framework is proposed. Specifically, the full-duplex (FD) base station (BS) simultaneously receives the offloading signals from decision robots (DRs) and carries out target robot (TR) sensing. A computation rate maximization problem is formulated to optimize the sensing and receive beamformers at the BS and the STAR-RIS coefficients under the BS power constraint, the sensing signal-to-noise ratio constraint, and STAR-RIS coefficients constraints. The alternating optimization (AO) method is adopted to solve the proposed optimization problem. With fixed STAR-RIS coefficients, the subproblem with respect to sensing and receiving beamformer at the BS is tackled with the weighted minimum mean-square error method. Given beamformers at the BS, the subproblem with respect to STAR-RIS coefficients is tacked with the penalty method and successive convex approximation method. The overall algorithm is guaranteed to converge to at least a stationary point of the computation rate maximization problem. Our simulation results validate that the proposed STAR-RIS aided ISCC IoRT system can enhance the sum computation rate compared with the benchmark schemes.