Finite-Aperture Planar Fluid Antenna Array

Abstract: Fluid antenna systems (FASs) are emerging as a reconfigurable-aperture technology that expands physical-layer design beyond fixed, rigid antenna geometries. While the \emph{fading diversity} of FASs -- which exploits spatial channel fluctuations for signal enhancement and interference avoidance -- has been widely studied, the \emph{geometry diversity} created by reconfigurable port placement remains far less understood, particularly for planar architectures under finite-aperture constraints. This paper develops a systematic analytical framework for finite-aperture planar fluid antenna arrays (FAAs). First, we derive a closed-form characterization of the minimum inter-port distance under uniform random placement over a rectangular aperture and show that it follows a Rayleigh law. Its mean scales as $\mathcal{O}(M<sup>{-1})$, in sharp contrast to the $\mathcal{O}(M<sup>{-2})$ behavior in the linear case in which $M$ represents the number of candidate ports, revealing a fundamentally more favorable packing geometry in two dimensions. Secondly, we establish a universal Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) for joint elevation-azimuth estimation, governed by a $2\times 2$ \emph{geometric inertia matrix} whose determinant and eigenstructure fully capture the role of port placement in estimation precision. We further prove that both the trace and determinant of this matrix are invariant to the azimuth look direction. Third, we uncover an intrinsic \emph{precision--ambiguity trade-off}: maximizing the geometric determinant to minimize the CRB drives ports toward the aperture boundary, but simultaneously increases sidelobe-induced spatial ambiguity.