Publikation
Integrated Sensing and Communications over Hierarchical Cellular and Cell-Free MIMO Systems
Wei Jiang; Hans Dieter Schotten
In: IEEE (Hrsg.). IEEE Globecom. IEEE Global Communications Conference (Globecom-2026), December 7-11, Macau, China, IEEE, 12/2026.
Zusammenfassung
Only the chairs can edit This paper studies integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) over a hybrid system that seamlessly combines legacy cellular base stations with distributed cell-free (CF) access points (APs). We propose a hierarchical ISAC architecture where a central base station (CBS) serves near users and simultaneously operates as a monostatic radar for aerial target detection, while distributed APs---many idle under user-centric clustering---act as cost-free bistatic receivers. The CBS jointly handles communication processing and multi-static sensing fusion, reducing fronthaul overhead compared to conventional cell-free ISAC. To achieve this, a five-phase time-division duplexing workflow with precise ISAC role assignment is specified. Closed-form expressions for spectral efficiency and multi-static sensing signal-to-noise ratio analytically characterise the communications--sensing Pareto frontier. Numerical results confirm that the proposed hierarchical design simultaneously achieves higher throughput and superior sensing accuracy than conventional cell-free ISAC.