Signal Enhancement and Suppression Schemes for Bi-Static ISAC With IRS-Mounted Target

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) has evolved as a critical paradigm to enhance the dual functions concurrently. However, ISAC may encounter performance limitations, due to undesired channel conditions, small target size, and security threats. In this paper, we investigate intelligent reconfigurable surface (IRS)-aided bi-static ISAC networks, where the IRS is mounted directly on the target surface, and analyze the signal enhancing and suppressing effects of the target-mounted IRS, respectively. First, we maximize the sensing signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) while satisfying the users’ communication requirements by jointly optimizing the transmit beamforming and IRS reflection. To solve this optimization problem, an alternating optimization algorithm is employed to decouple the optimization variables, followed by the application of successive convex approximation and penalty dual decomposition to solve the subproblems. Second, we consider two threatening scenarios where two adversarial base stations (BSs) intend to capture the information reflected by the target. In the first scenario where the adversarial receiving BS attempts to exploit the reflected ISAC signal, we minimize its received power via optimizing the transmit beamforming and the IRS reflection alternately. In the second scenario where the adversarial transmitting BS emits a dedicated signal to detect the target, we focus on optimizing the IRS reflection. Simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed schemes.