RIS Beam Calibration for ISAC Systems: Modeling and Performance Analysis

High-accuracy localization is a key enabler for integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), playing an essential role in various applications such as autonomous driving. Antenna arrays and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) are incorporated into these systems to achieve high angular resolution, assisting in the localization process. However, array and RIS beam patterns in practice often deviate from the idealized models used for algorithm design, leading to significant degradation in positioning accuracy. This mismatch highlights the need for beam calibration to bridge the gap between theoretical models and real-world hardware behavior. In this paper, we present and analyze three beam models considering several key non-idealities such as mutual coupling, non-ideal codebook, and measurement uncertainties. Based on the models, we then develop calibration algorithms to estimate the model parameters that can be used for future localization tasks. This work evaluates the effectiveness of the beam models and the calibration algorithms using both theoretical bounds and real-world beam pattern data from an RIS prototype. The simulation results show that the model incorporating combined impacts can accurately reconstruct measured beam patterns. This highlights the necessity of realistic beam modeling and calibration to achieve high-accuracy localization.

Joint Near-Field Sensing and Visibility Region Detection with Extremely Large Aperture Arrays

In this paper, we consider near-field localization and sensing with an extremely large aperture array under partial blockage of array antennas, where spherical wavefront and spatial non-stationarity are accounted for. We propose an Ising model to characterize the clustered sparsity feature of the blockage pattern, develop an algorithm based on alternating optimization for joint channel parameter estimation and visibility region detection, and further estimate the locations of the user and environmental scatterers. The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm compared to conventional methods.

RIS-Aided Positioning Under Adverse Conditions: Interference from Unauthorized RIS

Positioning technology, which aims to determine the geometric information of a device in a global coordinate, is a key component in integrated sensing and communication systems. In addition to traditional active anchor-based positioning systems, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) have shown great potential for enhancing system performance. However, their ability to manipulate electromagnetic waves and ease of deployment pose potential risks, as unauthorized RIS may be intentionally introduced to jeopardize the positioning service. Such an unauthorized RIS can cause unexpected interference in the original localization system, distorting the transmitted signals, and leading to degraded positioning accuracy. In this work, we investigate the scenario of RIS-aided positioning in the presence of interference from an unauthorized RIS. Theoretical lower bounds are employed to analyze the impact of unauthorized RIS on channel parameter estimation and positioning accuracy. Several codebook design strategies for unauthorized RIS are evaluated, and various system arrangements are discussed. The simulation results show that an unauthorized RIS path with a high channel gain or a delay similar to that of legitimate RIS paths leads to poor positioning performance. Furthermore, unauthorized RIS generates more effective interference when using directional beamforming codebooks compared to random codebooks.

Privacy Preservation in MIMO-OFDM Localization Systems: A Beamforming Approach

We investigate an uplink MIMO-OFDM localization scenario where a legitimate base station (BS) aims to localize a user equipment (UE) using pilot signals transmitted by the UE, while an unauthorized BS attempts to localize the UE by eavesdropping on these pilots, posing a risk to the UE's location privacy. To enhance legitimate localization performance while protecting the UE's privacy, we formulate an optimization problem regarding the beamformers at the UE, aiming to minimize the Cram\'er-Rao bound (CRB) for legitimate localization while constraining the CRB for unauthorized localization above a threshold. A penalty dual decomposition optimization framework is employed to solve the problem, leading to a novel beamforming approach for location privacy preservation. Numerical results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach and demonstrate its superiority over existing benchmarks.