UAV assisted integrated sensing and communications for Internet of Things: 3D trajectory optimization and resource allocation

High-mobility unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can serve as dual-function aerial service platforms for the Internet of Things (IoT), providing both sensing and communication services for IoT nodes without a base station (BS), particularly in emergency situations. In this paper, a UAV-assisted integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) system is proposed for IoT, which simultaneously senses the status information around the IoT and sends the sensing information to both the IoT nodes and a data collection center. In order to assess the sensing performance of ISAC, the radar estimation rate is introduced as a significant metric from the perspective of information theory. Considering the mutual interference between sensing and communications, the radar estimation rate is maximized through the coordinated optimization of UAV task scheduling, transmit power allocation, and 3D flight parameters under the constraint of communication rate. The formulated non-convex mixed-integer programming problem is divided into three subproblems, including UAV task scheduling optimization, UAV sensing and communication power optimization, and UAV 3D flight parameters optimization. The optimal solutions can be achieved by proposing a three-layer iterative optimization algorithm to optimize the three subproblems iteratively. The simulation results show that the radar estimation rate can well measure the sensing performance of the ISAC, which can be effectively improved by optimizing the 3D UAV flight parameters.