Radar-Centric ISAC Through Index Modulation: Over-the-air Experimentation and Trade-offs

This study experimentally demonstrates a radar-centric integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system that exploits the radar transmission parameters as modulation indexes to communicate with the user devices while performing short-range radar sensing. The center frequency, bandwidth, and polarization of the transmitted radar chirps are used as modulation indexes. The simulation results have been verified by real-time over-the-air experimental measurements that have also revealed the trade-off between the radar sensing performance and communication data rate, depending on the radar waveform parameters selected in the ISAC system. The proposed dual-function radar and communication system was shown to reach up to 10 Megabits/s throughput depending on the bandwidth and centre frequency separations and chirp duration.