No Arabic abstract
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has emerged as a promising technology for achieving high spectrum and energy efficiency in future wireless communication networks. In this paper, we investigate an RIS-aided single-cell multi-user mobile edge computing (MEC) system where an RIS is deployed to support the communication between a base station (BS) equipped with MEC servers and multiple single-antenna users. To utilize the scarce frequency resource efficiently, we assume that users communicate with BS based on a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) protocol. Each user has a computation task which can be computed locally or partially/fully offloaded to the BS. We aim to minimize the sum energy consumption of all users by jointly optimizing the passive phase shifters, the size of transmission data, transmission rate, power control, transmission time and the decoding order. Since the resulting problem is non-convex, we use the block coordinate descent method to alternately optimize two separated subproblems. More specifically, we use the dual method to tackle a subproblem with given phase shift and obtain the closed-form solution; and then we utilize penalty method to solve another subproblem for given power control. Moreover, in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm, we propose three benchmark schemes: the time-division multiple access (TDMA)-MEC scheme, the full local computing scheme and the full offloading scheme. We use an alternating 1-D search method and the dual method that can solve the TDMA-based transmission problem well. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can increase the energy efficiency and achieve significant performance gains over the three benchmark schemes.
The intrinsic integration of the nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) techniques is envisioned to be a promising approach to significantly improve both the spectrum efficiency and energy efficiency for future wireless communication networks. In this paper, the physical layer security (PLS) for a RIS-aided NOMA 6G networks is investigated, in which a RIS is deployed to assist the two dead zone NOMA users and both internal and external eavesdropping are considered. For the scenario with only internal eavesdropping, we consider the worst case that the near-end user is untrusted and may try to intercept the information of far-end user. A joint beamforming and power allocation sub-optimal scheme is proposed to improve the system PLS. Then we extend our work to a scenario with both internal and external eavesdropping. Two sub-scenarios are considered in this scenario: one is the sub-scenario without channel state information (CSI) of eavesdroppers, and another is the sub-scenario where the eavesdroppers CSI are available. For the both sub-scenarios, a noise beamforming scheme is introduced to be against the external eavesdroppers. An optimal power allocation scheme is proposed to further improve the system physical security for the second sub-scenario. Simulation results show the superior performance of the proposed schemes. Moreover, it has also been shown that increasing the number of reflecting elements can bring more gain in secrecy performance than that of the transmit antennas.
Space information networks (SIN) are facing an ever-increasing thirst for high-speed and high-capacity seamless data transmission due to the integration of ground, air, and space communications. However, this imposes a new paradigm on the architecture design of the integrated SIN. Recently, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) and mobile edge computing (MEC) are the most promising techniques, conceived to improve communication and computation capability by reconfiguring the wireless propagation environment and offloading. Hence, converging RISs and MEC in SIN is becoming an effort to reap the double benefits of computation and communication. In this article, we propose an RIS-assisted collaborative MEC architecture for SIN and discuss its implementation. Then we present its potential benefits, major challenges, and feasible applications. Subsequently, we study different cases to evaluate the system data rate and latency. Finally, we conclude with a list of open issues in this research area.
This article focuses on the exploitation of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) in multi-user networks employing orthogonal multiple access (OMA) or non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), with an emphasis on investigating the interplay between NOMA and RIS. Depending on whether the RIS reflection coefficients can be adjusted only once or multiple times during one transmission, we distinguish between static and dynamic RIS configurations. In particular, the capacity region of RIS aided single-antenna NOMA networks is characterized and compared with the OMA rate region from an information-theoretic perspective, revealing that the dynamic RIS configuration is capacity-achieving. Then, the impact of the RIS deployment location on the performance of different multiple access schemes is investigated, which reveals that asymmetric and symmetric deployment strategies are preferable for NOMA and OMA, respectively. Furthermore, for RIS aided multiple-antenna NOMA networks, three novel joint active and passive beamformer designs are proposed based on both beamformer based and cluster based strategies. Finally, open research problems for RIS-NOMA networks are highlighted.
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) enhanced multi-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) networks are investigated. A new transmission framework is proposed, where multiple UAV-mounted base stations employ NOMA to serve multiple groups of ground users with the aid of an IRS. The three-dimensional (3D) placement and transmit power of UAVs, the reflection matrix of the IRS, and the NOMA decoding orders among users are jointly optimized for maximization of the sum rate of considered networks. To tackle the formulated mixed-integer non-convex optimization problem with coupled variables, a block coordinate descent (BCD)-based iterative algorithm is developed. Specifically, the original problem is decomposed into three subproblems, which are alternatingly solved by exploiting the penalty method and the successive convex approximation technique. The proposed BCD-based algorithm is demonstrated to be able to obtain a stationary point of the original problem with polynomial time complexity. Numerical results show that: 1) the proposed NOMA-IRS scheme for multi-UAV networks achieves a higher sum rate compared to the benchmark schemes, i.e., orthogonal multiple access (OMA)-IRS and NOMA without IRS; 2) the use of IRS is capable of providing performance gain for multi-UAV networks by both enhancing channel qualities of UAVs to their served users and mitigating the inter-UAV interference; and 3) optimizing the UAV placement can make the sum rate gain brought by NOMA more distinct due to the flexible decoding order design.
Given the proliferation of wireless sensors and smart mobile devices, an explosive escalation of the volume of data is anticipated. However, restricted by their limited physical sizes and low manufacturing costs, these wireless devices tend to have limited computational capabilities and battery lives. To overcome this limitation, wireless devices may offload their computational tasks to the nearby computing nodes at the network edge in mobile edge computing (MEC). At the time of writing, the benefits of MEC systems have not been fully exploited, predominately because the computation offloading link is still far from perfect. In this article, we propose to enhance MEC systems by exploiting the emerging technique of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), which are capable of `reconfiguring the wireless propagation environments, hence enhancing the offloading links. The benefits of RISs can be maximized by jointly optimizing both the RISs as well as the communications and computing resource allocations of MEC systems. Unfortunately, this joint optimization imposes new research challenges on the system design. Against this background, this article provides an overview of RIS-assisted MEC systems and highlights their four use cases as well as their design challenges and solutions. Finally, their performance is characterized with the aid of a specific case study, followed by a range of future research ideas.