Integrated sensing and communications for unsourced random access: Fundamental limits and practical model

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftForschungsartikelBeigetragenBegutachtung

Abstract

This work addresses the problem of integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) involving a massive number of unsourced and uncoordinated users. In the proposed model, known as the unsourced ISAC system (UNISAC), all active communication and sensing users simultaneously share a short frame to transmit their signals without requiring scheduling by the base station or the need to announce their identities. Consequently, the received signal from each user is heavily affected by interference from numerous other users, making it challenging to extract individual transmissions. UNISAC is designed to decode the message sequences from communication users while simultaneously detecting active sensing users and estimating their angles of arrival, regardless of the senders' identities. We establish a second-order achievable bound for UNISAC that explicitly quantifies performance deviations due to finite resources, and we show that it outperforms ISAC approaches built on traditional multiple access methods, including ALOHA, time-division multiple access (TDMA), treating interference as noise (TIN), and a TDMA-based scheme combined with multiple signal classification for sensing. Additionally, we propose a practical model that validates the feasibility of the achievable result, showing comparable or even superior performance in scenarios with a small number of users. Through numerical simulations, we demonstrate the effectiveness of both the practical UNISAC model and the achievable result.

Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Seiten (von - bis)16547-16561
Seitenumfang15
FachzeitschriftIEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications
Jahrgang25
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 4 Mai 2026
Peer-Review-StatusJa

Externe IDs

unpaywall 10.1109/twc.2026.3687628
ORCID /0000-0002-1702-9075/work/214456955
ORCID /0000-0002-7201-7800/work/214457062
Scopus 105038637177

Schlagworte