Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) is emerging as a key enabler for spectrum-efficient and hardware-converged wireless networks. However, classical radar systems within ISAC architectures face fundamental limitations under low signal power and high-noise conditions. This paper proposes a novel framework that embeds quantum illumination radar into a base station to simultaneously support full-duplex classical communication and quantum-enhanced target detection. The resulting integrated quantum sensing and classical communication (IQSCC) system is optimized via a sum-rate maximization formulation subject to radar sensing constraints. The non-convex joint optimization of transmit power and beamforming vectors is tackled using the successive convex approximation technique. Furthermore, we derive performance bounds for classical and quantum radar protocols under the statistical detection theory, highlighting the quantum advantage in low signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio regimes. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed IQSCC system achieves a higher communication throughput than the conventional ISAC baseline while satisfying the sensing requirement.
Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) is emerging as a key enabler for spectrum-efficient and hardware-converged wireless networks. However, classical radar systems within ISAC architectures face fundamental limitations under low signal power and high-noise conditions. This paper proposes a novel framework that embeds quantum illumination radar into a base station to simultaneously support full-duplex classical communication and quantum-enhanced target detection. The resulting integrated quantum sensing and classical communication (IQSCC) system is optimized via a sum-rate maximization formulation subject to radar sensing constraints. The non-convex joint optimization of transmit power and beamforming vectors is tackled using the successive convex approximation technique. Furthermore, we derive performance bounds for classical and quantum radar protocols under the statistical detection theory, highlighting the quantum advantage in low signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio regimes. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed IQSCC system achieves a higher communication throughput than the conventional ISAC baseline while satisfying the sensing requirement.
The following paper models a secure full duplex (FD) integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) scenario, where malicious eavesdroppers aim at intercepting the downlink (DL) as well as the uplink (UL) information exchanged between the dual functional radar and communication (DFRC) base station (BS) and a set of communication users. The DFRC BS, on the other hand, aims at illuminating radar beams at the eavesdroppers in order to sense their physical parameters, while maintaining high UL/DL secrecy rates. Based on the proposed model, we formulate a power efficient secure ISAC optimization framework design, which is intended to guarantee both UL and DL secrecy rates requirements, while illuminating radar beams towards eavesdroppers. The framework exploits artificial noise (AN) generation at the DFRC BS, along with UL/DL beamforming design and UL power allocation. We propose a beamforming design solution to the secure ISAC optimization problem. Finally, we corroborate our findings via simulation results and demonstrate the feasibility, as well as the superiority of the proposed algorithm, under different situations. We also reveal insightful trade-offs achieved by our approach.
Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) can reuse the same spectrum and hardware resources for communication and radar sensing, which is a promising technology to alleviate spectrum congestion. Recently, there has been an increasing research interest in the physical layer secrecy aspects of ISAC systems. This paper studies a basic multiple-input single-output ISAC secrecy system, where a multi-antenna base station transmits a unified signal to sense a point target and communicate to a single-antenna receiver in the presence ofKsingle antenna eavesdroppers. Under this setup, a sensing signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) constrained secrecy rate maximization problem has been formulated. We showed that the problem can be reformulated as a convex semidefinite programming problem and proved that beamforming is the optimal transmission scheme. We derived two low-complexity semiclosed-form optimal beamforming solutions and one suboptimal closed-form solution. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed solutions attain the optimum of the sensing SNR constrained secrecy rate maximization problem and have lower computational complexity than the existing method.
Microwave quantum illumination (QI) represents a paradigm shift in low-power wireless radar detection, leveraging entanglement between signal and idler microwave photons to achieve detection performance exceeding classical limits by up to 6 dB in error exponent, particularly in high-noise environments where traditional coherent radars falter. This comprehensive survey delineates the theoretical foundations and practical protocols of microwave QI, beginning with two-mode squeezed vacuum state generation using Josephson parametric amplifiers in cryogenic setups, which produce highly correlated photon pairs resilient to channel decoherence. Receiver architectures, including optical parametric amplifier-single-photon avalanche diode (OPA-SPADE) systems with sum-frequency generation for joint measurements and digital phase-conjugation for computational correlation recovery, enable efficient extraction of quantum discord even after significant atmospheric loss or low target reflectivity (under 1%).Performance analyses under realistic thermal noise models ( ) and -loss channels confirm sustained quantum advantages via the quantum Chernoff exponent , validated by ray-tracing simulations showing doubled detection range at fixed power and lab experiments at 10 GHz carriers detecting weak reflectors amid 100 K noise. Low-power optimizations such as adaptive entanglement tuning, chirped pulse shaping, and neural network-aided parameter selection yield 50% energy reductions without sacrificing fidelity, making QI viable for battery-limited platforms. Applications encompass short-range automotive/UAV radar for fog-penetrating obstacle avoidance, non-invasive biomedical subsurface imaging with safe radiation levels, covert perimeter security against jamming, and seamless integration into 6G networks via joint communication-sensing waveforms at mm Wave/THz bands. The paper identifies key challenges including multi-target scalability, real-time gigascale processing, and quantum RF interface standardization, proposing hybrid quantum-classical frameworks and entanglement-swapped sensor arrays as pathways to deployment. This work bridges quantum optics with RF engineering, equipping researchers with blueprints for prototyping transformative quantum-enhanced wireless sensing systems.
In this letter, we propose a near-field secure integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system architecture, where the ISAC system simultaneously performs target detection and tracking while transmitting communication information to downlink users. However, in the presence of malicious eavesdropping devices, the security of communication transmission in ISAC systems cannot be guaranteed. Near-field effects introduce an additional advantage in the distance dimension, which improves the accuracy of target distance and angle estimation. Simultaneously, beamforming can be spatially focused at specific points to prevent information leakage. Motivated by these benefits, We construct a weighted optimization framework aimed at jointly maximizing the overall secrecy rate and reducing the Cramér-Rao Bound (CRB) for target estimation in near-field scenarios, while adhering to communication demands and total power limitations of the system. By integrating fractional programming (FP) and semidefinite relaxation (SDR) techniques, we jointly optimize the transmit waveform covariance matrix and the beamforming vectors to enhance both sensing accuracy and secure transmission performance simultaneously. Numerical results reveal that the secure near-field ISAC scheme can effectively achieve a synergy enhancement between sensing and secure communication while maintaining reliable system performance.
Quantum radar is an emerging technique, currently at the experimental stage, that promises to disrupt the well-established field of conventional radar. Recent progress shows that it is possible to generate and use entangled pairs of microwave photons for detection purposes and to obtain an advantage over a classical radar. In this work, we study the currently experimentally feasible type of quantum correlation radar. To this end, we compare different radar architectures, quantum and classical, by analyzing their detection performances by means of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC), the minimum error probability as well as the Chernoff bound. The underlying system models are based on quantum mechanical formulations as well as conventional signal theory. Where it is appropriate and necessary to facilitate our analysis, we apply the central limit theorem to establish the Gaussianity of the observable quantities. A conceptual analogy between the quantum and classic points-of-view is drawn and supported by results showing the asymptotic behavior of the ROC curves of both physical descriptions depending on the power levels of signal and noise. We come to exact and comprehensible conclusions on the current state of quantum radar in comparison to classic radar with a detailed mapping of the radar operating regime (measurement time, signal-to-noise ratio, environmental noise level, target object size and distance) in which a quantum advantage is attainable.
This paper studies the joint secure transceiver design for the full-duplex integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system, in which the base station performs the target tracking and communicates with the downlink and the uplink users by reusing the resources. Here, the target, referred to as Eve, is a potential eavesdropper with the intention of intercepting both the downlink and the uplink information. The security problem of the full-duplex ISAC system has not been studied well, where the sensing and communication signals suffer from the serious interference. In this paper, we jointly design the information beamformer, the radar waveform, the uplink communication receive filter, and the radar receive filter to achieve the downlink and uplink communication security and the target tracking. Specifically, both the Eve’s signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio minimization and the secrecy rate maximization problems, subject to the sensing and the communication constraints, are formulated for the ISAC system from the perspectives of the quality of service and the secrecy rate. An iterative algorithm is proposed for solving the formulated problems. We prove that, under appropriate conditions, the proposed iterative algorithm converges to the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker optimal point of the original problem without the rank 1 constraint. We further extend the joint design to the case of the imperfect wiretap channel and the angle uncertainty. Numerical results show that our scheme remarkably outperforms the benchmark approaches. The performance is close to that of designing the secure communication and the sensing separately.