Joint Hybrid Beamforming and RIS Phase Shift Design for RIS-Enabled Mmwave ISAC System

Empowering cellular networks with augmented sensing capabilities is a key research area in sixth generation (6 G) communication systems. Recently, we have witnessed a plethora of efforts to devise solutions that integrate sensing capabilities into communication systems, i.e., integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), especially at millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies with large bandwidths. Despite the challenges posed by severe path loss and blockage at mmWave bands, this work incorporates reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) into ISAC systems to enhance both sensing and communication. To comply with the waveform utilized in current cellular systems, this paper studies mmWave orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) ISAC systems in the presence of RISs. Specifically, we jointly design the hybrid beamforming and RIS phase shifts to guarantee the sensing functionalities via minimizing the beampattern mean squared error at RIS, subject to signal-to-interference-plus-noise (SINR) and power constraints. The non-convexity of the investigated problem poses a challenge which we address by proposing a solution based on the penalty method and manifold-based alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Simulation results demonstrate that both sensing and communication capabilities improve when the RIS is adequately designed. In addition, we discuss the tradeoff between sensing and communication.