On the Impact of Reactive Region on the Near-Field Channel Gain

The near-field channel gain is analyzed by considering both radiating and reactive components of the electromagnetic field. Novel expressions are derived for the channel gains of spatially-discrete (SPD) and continuous-aperture (CAP) arrays, which are more accurate than conventional results that neglect the reactive region. To gain further insights, asymptotic analyses are carried out in the large aperture size, based on which the impact of the reactive region is discussed. It is proved that for both SPD and CAP arrays, the impact of the reactive region on near-field channel gain is negligible, even as the array aperture size approaches infinity.

Performance Analysis for Near-Field ISAC: A Holographic MIMO Design

A near-field holographic multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) based integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) framework is proposed for both downlink and uplink scenarios, where spherical wave-based model is considered to capture the characteristics of the near field. The coupling effect introduced by the densely spaced antennas of the holographic MIMO are characterized by spatially correlated Rayleigh fading. Based on the proposed framework, by considering both instantaneous channel state information (CSI) and statistical CSI, closed-form expressions are derived for sensing rates (SRs), communication rates (CRs), and outage probabilities under different ISAC designs. Further insights are gained by examining high signal-to-noise ratio slopes and diversity orders. Specifically, 1) for the downlink case, a sensing-centric (S-C) design and a communications-centric (C-C) design are investigated based on different beamforming strategies, and a Pareto optimal design is proposed to characterize the attainable SR-CR region; and 2) for the uplink case, the S-C design and the C-C design are distinguished by the interference cancellation order of the communication signal and the sensing signal, and the rate region is obtained through a time-sharing strategy. Numerical results reveal that the proposed ISAC system achieves more extensive rate regions than the conventional frequency-division sensing and communications system, highlighting its superior performance.

On the Performance of Near-Field ISAC

The technical trends for the next-generation wireless network significantly extend the near-field region, necessitating a reevaluation for the performance of integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) to account for the effects introduced by the near field. In this paper, a near-field ISAC framework is proposed with a more accurate channel model than the three conventional models (TCMs): uniform plane wave, uniform spherical wave, and non-uniform spherical wave, in which the effective aperture of the antenna is considered. Based on the proposed model, sensing and communication (S&C) performance in both downlink and uplink scenarios are analyzed. For the downlink case, three distinct designs are studied: the communications-centric (C-C) design, the sensing-centric (S-C) design, and the Pareto optimal design. Regarding the uplink case, the C-C design, the S-C design and the time-sharing strategy are considered. Within each design, sensing rates (SRs) and communication rates (CRs) are derived. To gain further insights, high signal-to-noise ratio slopes and rate scaling laws concerning the number of antennas are also examined. Finally, the attainable SR-CR regions of the near-field ISAC are characterized. Numerical results reveal that 1) as the number of antennas grows, the SRs and CRs of the proposed model converges to constants, while those of the TCMs increase unboundedly; 2) ISAC achieves a more extensive rate region than the conventional frequency-division S&C in both downlink and uplink cases.