Cellular Sensing via Cooperative Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) can effectively improve the performance of wireless communications and target sensing by passive beamforming/searching. In this correspondence, we consider IRS-aided target sensing in cellular networks by deploying an IRS near each base station (BS) and leveraging two IRSs' cooperative passive beam searching. Specifically, we propose a new three-stage sensing protocol by controlling the ON/OFF state of each IRS, thereby efficiently acquiring the essential angle information between the IRSs and the target. Based on the obtained angle information, the location of the target is estimated by applying the least-square method. Simulation results are provided to show the efficacy of the proposed cellular sensing scheme with practical half-duplex BSs as compared to other baseline schemes requiring full-duplex BSs.