Integrated Sensing and Communication with Tri-Hybrid Beamforming Across Electromagnetically Reconfigurable Antennas

Abstract: Beamforming with a sufficient number of antennas is one of the most significant technologies for both Multi-user (MU) Multiple-input Multiple-output (MIMO) communication and MIMO radar sensing in Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) systems. However, its performance suffers from limited Degrees of Freedom (DoFs) in conventional hybrid beamforming systems. To overcome this, we propose an Electromagnetically Reconfigurable Antenna (ERA)-aided ISAC system, where transmit ERAs dynamically adjust their radiation patterns to enhance system DoFs and improve overall performance. Specifically, we design a tri-hybrid beamforming optimization framework combining digital, analog, and Electromagnetic (EM) beamforming to jointly maximize communication rate and sensing Signal-to-Clutter-plus-Noise Ratio (SCNR). Furthermore, an integrated Fractional Programming (FP) and Manifold Optimization (MO) approach is developed to transform the problem into tractable subproblems with closed-form updates. Simulation results verify that the proposed ERA-ISAC system achieves almost 10 dB Sensing and Communication (S&C) performance gain compared to its conventional hybrid beamforming counterparts with Omnidirectional Antenna (OA).