An Optimized Secure Cooperative Integrated Sensing and Communication System

In this paper, a robust and secure cooperative integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) scheme is proposed and analyzed. The considered scheme exploits multiple dual-functional radar communication (DFRC) base stations (BSs) in order to (i) better illuminate the sensed environment and increase the target detection performance, and (ii) ensure secure communication with respect to several malicious targets. The cluster of cooperating BSs beamform the confidential signals beams to the receiving legitimate users as well as an artificial noise (AN) signal to the set of malicious targets, whereby the AN signal is designed for sensing malicious targets and safeguarding confidential signals from being leaked to the latter nodes, acting as eavesdroppers. By optimizing the transmit beamforming and AN covariance matrices at each of the DFRC BSs, the network's sensing performance is maximized subject to a minimal secrecy capacity and power constraints. The obtained results demonstrate the proposed cooperative ISAC scheme's potential in enhancing the sensing performance compared to the baseline (i) single-BS DFRC-ISAC scheme and (ii) cooperative DFRC-ISAC employing a zero-forcing beamforming.