Rotatable Antenna-Enabled Near-Field Integrated Sensing and Communication

Abstract

In this paper, we propose leveraging rotatable antennas (RAs) to enhance near-field communication and sensing by exploiting a new orientation-domain spatial degree-of-freedom (DoF) provided by element-wise antenna rotation. Specifically, we investigate an RA-enabled near-field integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system with sub-connected hybrid beamforming, where each transmit RA can independently adjust its boresight direction under a practical rotation constraint. A spherical-wave channel model incorporating orientation-dependent antenna gains is established to characterize multi-user communication and target sensing in the presence of clutters. Based on this model, a weighted communication-sensing utility maximization problem is formulated by jointly optimizing the receive beamformer, digital beamformer, analog beamformer, and RA boresight directions. To solve the resulting non-convex problem, an alternating optimization algorithm is developed by combining fractional programming, Riemannian optimization, and a spherical-cap Frank--Wolfe-based boresight update. To further understand the impact of RA rotation on near-field sensing, we derive a closed-form root Cramer--Rao bound (RCRB) expression. Simulation results demonstrate the convergence and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. It is shown that the RA-enabled hybrid design can match or even outperform the fully-digital FPA benchmark in some regimes, indicating that the orientation-domain DoF introduced by element-wise rotation can compensate for limited RF chains. The RCRB and beampattern results further show that RA rotation improves off-broadside sensing accuracy, enhances range-domain focusing, and suppresses same-angle clutters in the near field.