Joint Sensing and Communications in Unmanned-Aerial-Vehicle-Assisted Systems

The application of joint sensing and communications (JSACs) technology in air–ground networks, which include unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), offers unique opportunities for improving both sensing and communication performances. However, this type of network is also sensitive to the peculiar characteristics of the aerial communications environment, which include shadowing and scattering caused by man-made structures. This paper investigates an aerial JSAC network and proposes a UAV-selection strategy that is shown to improve the communication performance. We first derive analytical expressions for the received signal-to-interference ratio for both communication and sensing functions. These expressions are then used to analyze the outage and coverage probability of the communication part, as well as the ergodic radar estimation information rate and the detection probability of the sensing part. Moreover, a performance trade-off is investigated under the assumption of a total bandwidth constraint. Various numerical evaluated results have been presented complemented by equivalent simulated ones. These results reveal the applicability of the proposed analysis, as well as the impact of shadowing and multipath fading severity, and interference on the system’s performance.