Fundamental Limits of Cooperative Strategies in Joint Sensing and Communication Networks

The optimal trade-off between sensing and communication in perceptive networks is gaining importance. However, the potential of multi-sensor (e.g., multi-base station (BS)) co-operation seems unexplored. In this work, we derive a general framework that leads to an analytical expression for the Cramér-Rao Bound (CRB) over the target position estimation error when several multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) BSs cooperate to realize a multiple monostatic setting, a multiple bistatic setting or a mixture of them (named heterogeneous setting). The analytical framework is then used to investigate such networked sensing configurations aiming to monitor a predefined area. Both communication channel fading and Swerling-type radar cross-section (RCS) are considered.