This paper studies the uplink spectral efficiency (SE) achieved by two single-antenna user equipments (UEs) communicating with a Large Intelligent Surface (LIS), defined as a planar array consisting of $N$ antennas that each has area $A$. The analysis is carried out with a deterministic line-of-sight propagation channel model that captures key fundamental aspects of the so-called geometric near-field of the array. Maximum ratio (MR) and minimum mean squared error (MMSE) combining schemes are considered. With both schemes, the signal and interference terms are numerically analyzed as a function of the position of the transmitting devices when the width/height $L = \sqrt{NA}$ of the square-shaped array grows large. The results show that an exact near-field channel model is needed to evaluate the SE whenever the distance of transmitting UEs is comparable with the LIS' dimensions. It is shown that, if $L$ grows, the UEs are eventually in the geometric near-field and the interference does not vanish. MMSE outperforms MR for an LIS of practically large size.
A reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) enhanced non-orthogonal multiple access assisted backscatter communication (RIS-NOMABC) system is considered. A joint optimization problem over power reflection coefficients and phase shifts is formulated. To solve this non-convex problem, a low complexity algorithm is proposed by invoking the alternative optimization, successive convex approximation and manifold optimization algorithms. Numerical results corroborate that the proposed RIS-NOMABC system outperforms the conventional non-orthogonal multiple access assisted backscatter communication (NOMA…
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted communication appears as one of the potential enablers for sixth generation (6G) wireless networks by providing a new way to optimize the communication system performance. This paper aims to fill an important gap in the open literature by providing an accurate, source, and widely applicable RIS channel model for mmWave frequencies. Our model is not only applicable in various indoor and outdoor environments but also includes the physical aspects of wireless propagation in the presence of an RIS as well as various practical 5G channel modeling is…
A statistical characterization of the fundamental performance bounds of an intelligent reflective surface (IRS) intended for aiding wireless communications is presented. To this end, the outage probability, average symbol error probability, and achievable rate bounds are derived in closed-form. By virtue of asymptotic analysis in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime, the achievable diversity order is derived. Thereby, we show that a diversity gain in the order of the number of passive reflective elements embedded within the IRS can be achieved with only controllable phase adjustments. T…
Reconfigurable intelligent surface~(RIS) has drawn a great attention worldwide as it can create favorable propagation conditions by controlling the phase shifts of the reflected signals at the surface to enhance the communication quality. However, the practical RIS only has limited phase shifts, which will lead to the performance degradation. In this letter, we evaluate the performance of an uplink RIS assisted communication system by giving an approximation of the achievable data rate, and investigate the effect of limited phase shifts on the data rate. In particular, we derive the required n…
Internet-of-Everything (IoE) has gradually been recognized as an integral part of future wireless networks. In IoE, there can be an ultra-massive number of smart devices of various types to be served, imposing multi-dimensional requirements on wireless communication, sensing, and security. In this article, we provide a tutorial overview of the promising intelligent reflection communication (IRC) technologies, including reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) and ambient backscatter communication (AmBC), to support the requirements of IoE applications beyond the fifth-generation (5G) wireless …
This paper exploits the potential of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to improve radar sensing in a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) empowered integrated sensing and communication (NOMA-ISAC) network. The objective is to maximize the minimum radar beampattern gain by jointly optimizing the active beamforming, power allocation coefficients and passive beamforming. To tackle the formulated non-convex problem, we propose an efficient joint optimization algorithm by invoking alternating optimization, successive convex approximation (SCA) and sequential rank-one constraint relaxation (…
In this paper, transmission through large intelligent surfaces (LIS) that intentionally modify the phases of incident waves to improve the signal quality at the receiver, is put forward as a promising candidate for future wireless communication systems and standards. For the considered LIS-assisted system, a general mathematical framework is presented for the calculation of symbol error probability (SEP) by deriving the distribution of the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Next, the new concept of using the LIS itself as an access point (AP) is proposed. Extensive computer simulation resul…
The future of mobile communications looks exciting with the potential new use cases and challenging requirements of future 6th generation (6G) and beyond wireless networks. Since the beginning of the modern era of wireless communications, the propagation medium has been perceived as a randomly behaving entity between the transmitter and the receiver, which degrades the quality of the received signal due to the uncontrollable interactions of the transmitted radio waves with the surrounding objects. The recent advent of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces in wireless communications enables, on t…
In this paper, we use a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) to enhance the radar sensing and communication capabilities of a mmWave dual function radar communication system. To simultaneously localize the target and to serve the user, we propose to adaptively partition the RIS by reserving separate RIS elements for sensing and communication. We design a multi-stage hierarchical codebook to localize the target while ensuring a strong communication link to the user. We also present a method to choose the number of times to transmit the same beam in each stage to achieve a desired target loc…
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) are typically used in multi-user systems to mitigate interference among active transmitters. In contrast, this paper studies a setting with a conventional active encoder as well as a passive encoder that modulates the reflection pattern of the RIS. The RIS hence serves the dual purpose of improving the rate of the active encoder and of enabling communication from the second encoder. The capacity region is characterized, and information-theoretic insights regarding the trade-offs between the rates of the two encoders are derived by focusing on the high…
In this letter, the channel estimation problem is studied for wireless communication systems assisted by large intelligent surface. Due to features of assistant channel, channel estimation (CE) problem for the investigated system is shown as a constrained estimation error minimization problem, which differs from traditional CE problems. A Lagrange multiplier and dual ascent-based estimation scheme is then designed to obtain a closed-form solution for the estimator iteratively. Moreover, the Cramer-Rao lower bounds are deduced for performance evaluation. Simulation results show that the designe…
We introduce a phase hopping scheme for reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) in which the phases of the individual RIS elements are randomly varied with each transmitted symbol. This effectively converts slow fading into fast fading. We show how this can be leveraged to significantly improve the outage performance especially for small outage probabilities without channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter and RIS. Furthermore, the same result can be accomplished even if only two possible phase values are available. Since we do not require perfect CSI at the transmitter or RIS, th…
It has been 20 years since the concept of cognitive radio (CR) was proposed, which is an efficient approach to provide more access opportunities to connect massive wireless devices. To improve the spectrum efficiency, CR enables unlicensed usage of licensed spectrum resources. It has been regarded as the key enabler for intelligent communications. In this article, we will provide an overview on the intelligent communication in the past two decades to illustrate the revolution of its capability from cognition to artificial intelligence (AI). Particularly, this article starts from a comprehensiv…
Wireless communications via intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) has received considerable attention from both academia and industry. In particular, IRSs are able to create favorable wireless propagation environments with typically low-cost passive devices. While various IRS-aided wireless communication systems have been investigated in the literature, thus far, the optimal design of such systems is not well understood. In this paper, IRS-assisted single-user multiple-input single-output (MISO) communication is investigated. To maximize the spectral efficiency, a branch-and-bound (BnB) algor…
Recent research provides an approximation on the performance for reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) assisted systems over generalized fading channels with phase noise resulting from imperfect phase compensation at the RIS. In this paper, we developed exact analysis and upper bounds on the performance of RIS-assisted vehicular communication system considering phase noise with mobility over asymmetric fading channels by coherently combining received signals reflected by RIS elements and direct transmissions from the source terminal. We employ a novel approach to represent the PDF and CDF o…
In this letter, the joint power control of D2D users and the passive beamforming of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) for a RIS-aided device-to-device (D2D) communication network is investigated to maximize energy efficiency. This non-convex optimization problem is divided into two subproblems, which are passive beamforming and power control. The two subproblems are optimized alternately. We first decouple the passive beamforming at RIS based on the Lagrangian dual transform. This problem is solved by using fractional programming. Then we optimize the power control by using the Dinkelb…
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is an emerging technique employing metasurface to reflect the signal from the source node to the destination node. By smartly reconfiguring the electromagnetic (EM) properties of the metasurface and adjusting the EM parameters of the reflected radio waves, RIS can turn the uncontrollable propagation environment into an artificially reconfigurable space, and thus, can significantly increase the communications capacity and improve the coverage of the system. In this paper, we investigate the far field channel in which the line-of-sight (LOS) propagation i…
The channel estimation overhead of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) assisted communication systems can be prohibitive. Prior works have demonstrated via simulations that grouping neighbouring RIS elements can help to reduce the pilot overhead and improve achievable rate. In this paper, we present an analytical study of RIS element grouping. We derive a tight closed-form upper bound for the achievable rate and then maximize it with respect to the group size. Our analysis reveals that more coarse-grained grouping is important-when the channel coherence time is low (high mobility scenario…
This paper focuses on studying orthogonal and non-orthogonal multiple access in intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-aided systems. Unlike most prior works assuming continuous phase shifts, we employ the practical setup where only a finite number of discrete phase shifts are available. To maximize the sum rate, active beamforming and discrete reflection need to be jointly optimized. We therefore propose an alternative optimization method to get the optimal continuous phase shifts iteratively, and then quantize each phase shift to its nearest discrete value. The sum-rate maximization of differe…
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) are regarded as a promising emerging hardware technology to improve the spectrum and energy efficiency of wireless networks by artificially reconfiguring the propagation environment of electromagnetic waves. Due to the unique advantages in enhancing wireless channel capacity, RISs have recently become a hot research topic. In this article, we focus on three fundamental physical-layer challenges for the incorporation of RISs into wireless networks, namely, channel state information acquisition, passive information transfer, and low-complexity robust sy…
Intelligent reconfigurable surface (IRS) is being seen as a promising technology for 6G wireless networks. The IRS can reconfigure the wireless propagation environment, which results in significant performance improvement of wireless communications. In this paper, we analyze the performance of bandwidth-efficient quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) techniques for IRS-assisted wireless communications over Rayleigh fading channels. New closed-form expressions of the generic average symbol error rate (ASER) for rectangular QAM, square QAM and cross QAM schemes are derived. Moreover, simplified …
In this paper, we study the performance of wideband terahertz (THz) communications assisted by an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS). Specifically, we first introduce a generalized channel model that is suitable for electrically large THz IRSs operating in the near-field. Unlike prior works, our channel model takes into account the spherical wavefront of the emitted electromagnetic waves and the spatial-wideband effect. We next show that conventional frequency-flat beamfocusing significantly reduces the power gain due to beam squint, and hence is highly suboptimal. More importantly, we analy…
Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication is expected to support many promising applications in next-generation wireless networks. The recent development of integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) technology offers new opportunities to meet the stringent sensing and communication (S&C) requirements in V2X networks. However, considering the relatively small radar cross section (RCS) of the vehicles and the limited transmit power of the road site units (RSUs), the power of echoes may be too weak to achieve effective target detection and tracking. To handle this issue, we propose a novel sen…
Sixth generation (6G) mobile networks may include new passive technologies, such as ambient backscatter communication or the use of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, to avoid the emission of waves and the corresponding energy consumption. On the one hand, a reconfigurable intelligent surface improves the network performance by adding electronically controlled reflected paths in the radio propagation channel. On the other hand, in an ambient backscatter system, a device, named tag, communicates towards a reader by backscattering the waves of an ambient source (such as a TV tower). However, t…
An intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), consisting of reconfigurable metamaterials, can be used to partially control the radio environment and thereby bring new features to wireless communications. Previous works on IRS have particularly studied the range extension use case and under what circumstances the new technology can beat relays. In this paper, we study another use case that might have a larger impact on the channel capacity: rank improvement. One of the classical bottlenecks of point-to-point MIMO communications is that the capacity gains provided by spatial multiplexing are only lar…
Signal processing and communication communities have witnessed the rise of many exciting communication technologies in recent years. Notable examples include alternative waveforms, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signaling, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), joint communications and sensing, sparse vector coding, index modulation, and so on. It is inevitable that 6G wireless networks will require a rethinking of wireless communication systems and technologies, particularly at the physical layer (PHY), considering the fact that the cellular industry reached another important m…
We propose a novel design of a dual-function radar communication (DFRC) system aided by an Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS). We consider a scenario with one target and multiple communication receivers, where there is no line-of-sight between the radar and the target. The radar precoding matrix and the IRS weights are optimally designed to maximize the weighted sum of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the radar receiver and the SNR at the communication receivers subject to power constraints and constant modulus constraints on the IRS weights. The problem is decoupled into two sub-problems,…
The concept of large intelligent surface (LIS)-based communication has recently attracted increasing research attention, where a LIS is considered as an antenna array whose entire surface area is available for radio signal transmission and reception. In order to provide a fundamental understanding of LIS-based communication, this paper studies the uplink performance of LIS-based communication with matched filtering in the presence of a line-of-sight channel. We first study the new features introduced by LIS. In particular, the array gain, spatial resolution, and the capability of interference …
The recently completed 5G new radio standard is a result of several cutting-edge technologies, including massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), millimeter (mm)-Wave communication and network densification. However, these technologies face two main practical limitations 1) the lack of control over the wireless channel, and 2) the high power consumption of the wireless interface. To address the need for green and sustainable future cellular networks, the concept of reconfiguring wireless propagation environments using Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces (IRS)s has emerged. An IRS comprises o…
Terahertz (THz) and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) have been regarded as two promising technologies to improve the capacity and coverage for future 6G networks. Generally, IRS is usually equipped with large-scale elements when implemented at THz frequency. In this case, the near-field model and beam squint should be considered. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate the far-field and near-field beam squint problems in THz IRS communications for the first time. The far-field and near-field channel models are constructed based on the different electromagnetic radiation characteristics. N…
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a communication model for Large Intelligent Surfaces (LIS). A LIS is modelled as a collection of tiny closely spaced antenna elements. Due to the proximity of the elements, mutual coupling arises. An optimal transmitter design depends on the mutual coupling matrix. For single user communication, the optimal transmitter uses the inverse of the mutual coupling matrix in a filter matched to the channel vector. We give the expression of the mutual coupling for two types of planar arrays. The conditioning number of the mutual coupling matrix is unbounded as…
We introduce a novel system setup where a backscatter device operates in the presence of an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS). In particular, we study the bistatic backscatter communication (BackCom) system assisted by an IRS. The phase shifts at the IRS are optimized jointly with the transmit beamforming vector of the carrier emitter to minimize the transmit power consumption at the carrier emitter whilst guaranteeing a required BackCom performance. The unique channel characteristics arising from multiple reflections at the IRS render the optimization problem highly non-convex. Therefore, …
Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) tune wireless environments to increase spectrum and energy efficiencies. In view of much recent attention to the IRS concept as a promising technology for 6G wireless communications, we present a survey of IRSs in this paper. Specifically, we categorize recent research studies of IRSs as follows. For IRS-aided communications, the summary includes capacity/data rate analyses, power/spectral optimizations, channel estimation, deep learning-based design, and reliability analysis. Then we review IRSs implementations as well as the use of IRSs in secure commun…
Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) with advanced sensing and computing technologies are expected to support a whole new set of services including pedestrian and vehicular safety, internet access for vehicles, and eventually, driverless cars. Wireless communication is a major driving factor behind ITS, enabling reliable communication between vehicles, infrastructure, pedestrians and network, generally referred to as vehicle to everything (V2X) communication. However, the broadcast nature of wireless communication renders it prone to jamming, eavesdropping and spoofing attacks which can ad…
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is one of the most promising technologies for 5G-Adv and 6G. It has the characteristics of low cost, low complexity, and easy deployment, which provides a new opportunity to develop intelligent high-speed railway communications. The typical applications of RIS-assisted smart high-speed railway communications are introduced in detail, including suppressing the Doppler shift effect, solving frequent handoff problems, overcoming high penetration loss problems, and supporting high-precision train positioning. The key technologies of RIS-assisted smart high-…
In this paper, a novel approach that uses an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-carried intelligent reflector (IR) is proposed to enhance the performance of millimeter wave (mmW) networks. In particular, the UAV-IR is used to intelligently reflect mmW beamforming signals from a base station towards a mobile outdoor user, while harvesting energy from mmW signals to power the IR. To maintain a line-of-sight (LOS) channel, a reinforcement learning (RL) approach, based on Q-learning and neural networks, is proposed to model the propagation environment, such that the location and reflection coefficient …
The IEEE Signal Processing Society is proud to announce the eighth edition of the Signal Processing Cup: an exciting challenge to control a wireless propagation environment using an intelligent reflecting surface. An intelligent reflecting surface is a two-dimensional array of metamaterial whose interaction with electromagnetic waves can be controlled, e.g., by tuning the impedance variations over the surface. These surfaces might be used in the sixth generation (6G) mobile technology to direct wireless signals from a transmitter towards a receiver, to raise the communication performance. The …
Millimeter wave communication is eminently suitable for high-rate wireless systems, which may be beneficially amalgamated with intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS), relying on beam-index modulation. Explicitly, we propose three different architectures based on IRSs for beam-index modulation in millimeter wave communication, which circumvent the line-of-sight blockage of millimeter wave frequencies. We conceive both the optimal maximum likelihood detector and a low-complexity compressed sensing detector for the proposed schemes. Finally, the schemes conceived are evaluated through extensive si…
Vehicular communication is an important application of the fifth generation of mobile communication systems (5G). Due to its low cost and energy efficiency, intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) has been envisioned as a promising technique that can enhance the coverage performance significantly by passive beamforming. In this paper, we analyze the outage probability performance in IRS-assisted vehicular communication networks. We derive the expression of outage probability by utilizing series expansion and central limit theorem. Numerical results show that the IRS can significantly reduce the o…
This paper first describes the introduction of 6G-empowered V2X communications and IRS technology. Then it discusses different use case scenarios of IRS enabled V2X communications and reports recent advances in the existing literature. Next, we focus our attention on the scenario of vehicular edge computing involving IRS enabled drone communications in order to reduce vehicle computational time via optimal computational and communication resource allocation. At the end, this paper highlights current challenges and discusses future perspectives of IRS enabled V2X communications in order to impr…
University of Hong Kong（香港大学）；Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（香港科技大学）
The recent revival of artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing almost every branch of science and technology. Given the ubiquitous smart mobile gadgets and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, it is expected that a majority of intelligent applications will be deployed at the edge of wireless networks. This trend has generated strong interests in realizing an "intelligent edge" to support AI-enabled applications at various edge devices. Accordingly, a new research area, called edge learning, emerges, which crosses and revolutionizes two disciplines: wireless communication and machine learni…
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) based communications have emerged as a new paradigm. This letter proposes a differential reflecting modulation (DRM) scheme for RIS based communication systems. In DRM, information bits are jointly carried by the activation permutations of the reflecting patterns and the phases of the transmitted signals, leading to that DRM can work without any channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter, RIS or receiver. In other words, DRM can release the intricate and resource-consuming channel estimation in the transmission process. Simulation results show t…
