ترغب بنشر مسار تعليمي؟ اضغط هنا

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces and Metamaterials: The Potential of Wave Propagation Control for 6G Wireless Communications

109   0   0.0 ( 0 )
 نشر من قبل George Alexandropoulos
 تاريخ النشر 2020
والبحث باللغة English




اسأل ChatGPT حول البحث

The future 6G of wireless communication networks will have to meet multiple requirements in increasingly demanding levels, either individually or in combinations in small groups. This trend has spurred recent research activities on transceiver hardware architectures and novel wireless connectivity concepts. Among the emerging wireless hardware architectures belong the Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs), which are artificial planar structures with integrated electronic circuits that can be programmed to manipulate an incoming ElectroMagnetic (EM) field in a wide variety of functionalities. Incorporating RISs in wireless networks has been recently advocated as a revolutionary means to transform any naturally passive wireless communication environment to an active one. This can be accomplished by deploying cost-effective and easy to coat RISs to the environments objects (e.g., building facades and indoor walls/ceilings), thus, offering increased environmental intelligence for the scope of diverse wireless networking objectives. In this paper, we first provide a brief history on wave propagation control for optics and acoustics, and overview two representative indoor wireless trials at 2.47GHz for spatial EM modulation with a passive discrete RIS. The first trial dating back to 2014 showcases the feasibility of highly accurate spatiotemporal focusing and nulling, while the second very recent one demonstrates that passive RISs can enrich multipath scattering, thus, enabling throughput boosted communication links. Motivated by the late research excitement on the RIS potential for intelligent EM wave propagation modulation, we describe the status on RIS hardware architectures and present key open challenges and future research directions for RIS design and RIS-empowered 6G wireless communications.



قيم البحث

اقرأ أيضاً

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) comprised of tunable unit cells have recently drawn significant attention due to their superior capability in manipulating electromagnetic waves. In particular, RIS-assisted wireless communications have the great potential to achieve significant performance improvement and coverage enhancement in a cost-effective and energy-efficient manner, by properly programming the reflection coefficients of the unit cells of RISs. In this paper, free-space path loss models for RIS-assisted wireless communications are developed for different scenarios by studying the physics and electromagnetic nature of RISs. The proposed models, which are first validated through extensive simulation results, reveal the relationships between the free-space path loss of RIS-assisted wireless communications and the distances from the transmitter/receiver to the RIS, the size of the RIS, the near-field/far-field effects of the RIS, and the radiation patterns of antennas and unit cells. In addition, three fabricated RISs (metasurfaces) are utilized to further corroborate the theoretical findings through experimental measurements conducted in a microwave anechoic chamber. The measurement results match well with the modeling results, thus validating the proposed free-space path loss models for RIS, which may pave the way for further theoretical studies and practical applications in this field.
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) provide an interface between the electromagnetic world of the wireless propagation environment and the digital world of information science. Simple yet sufficiently accurate path loss models for RISs are an important basis for theoretical analysis and optimization of RIS-assisted wireless communication systems. In this paper, we refine our previously proposed free-space path loss model for RISs to make it simpler, more applicable, and easier to use. In the proposed path loss model, the impact of the radiation patterns of the antennas and unit cells of the RIS is formulated in terms of an angle-dependent loss factor. The refined model gives more accurate estimates of the path loss of RISs comprised of unit cells with a deep sub-wavelength size. The free-space path loss model of the sub-channel provided by a single unit cell is also explicitly provided. In addition, two fabricated RISs, which are designed to operate in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) band, are utilized to carry out a measurement campaign in order to characterize and validate the proposed path loss model for RIS-assisted wireless communications. The measurement results corroborate the proposed analytical model. The proposed refined path loss model for RISs reveals that the reflecting capability of a single unit cell is proportional to its physical aperture and to an angle-dependent factor. In particular, the far-field beamforming gain provided by an RIS is mainly determined by the total area of the surface and by the angles of incidence and reflection.
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-empowered communications is on the rise and is a promising technology envisioned to aid in 6G and beyond wireless communication networks. RISs can manipulate impinging waves through their electromagnetic eleme nts enabling some sort of a control over the wireless channel. In this paper, the potential of RIS technology is explored to perform equalization over-the-air for frequency-selective channels whereas, equalization is generally conducted at either the transmitter or receiver in conventional communication systems. Specifically, with the aid of an RIS, the frequency-selective channel from the transmitter to the RIS is transformed to a frequency-flat channel through elimination of inter-symbol interference (ISI) components at the receiver. ISI is eliminated by adjusting the phases of impinging signals particularly to maximize the incoming signal of the strongest tap. First, a general end-to-end system model is provided and a continuous to discrete-time signal model is presented. Subsequently, a probabilistic analysis for the elimination of ISI terms is conducted and reinforced with computer simulations. Furthermore, a theoretical error probability analysis is performed along with computer simulations. It is demonstrated that with the proposed method, ISI can successfully be eliminated and the RIS-aided communication channel can be converted from frequency-selective to frequency-flat.
Current discussions on the sixth Generation (6G) of wireless communications are envisioning future networks as a unified communication, sensing, and computing platform that intelligently enables diverse services, ranging from immersive to mission cri tical applications. The recently conceived concept of the smart radio environment, enabled by Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs), contributes towards this intelligent networking trend, offering programmable propagation of information-bearing signals, which can be jointly optimized with transceiver operations. Typical RIS implementations include metasurfaces with nearly passive meta-atoms, allowing to solely reflect the incident wave in an externally controllable way. However, this purely reflective nature induces significant challenges in the RIS orchestration from the wireless network. For example, channel estimation, which is essential for coherent communications in RIS-empowered wireless networks, is quite challenging with the available RIS designs. This article introduces the concept of Hybrid reflecting and sensing RISs (HRISs), which enables metasurfaces to reflect the impinging signal in a controllable manner, while simultaneously sense a portion of it. The sensing capability of HRISs facilitates various network management functionalities, including channel estimation and localization. We discuss a hardware design for HRISs and detail a full-wave proof-of-concept. We highlight their distinctive properties in comparison to reflective RISs and active relays, and present a simulation study evaluating the HRIS capability for performing channel estimation. Future research challenges and opportunities arising from the concept of HRISs are presented.
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) have promising coverage and data rate gains for wireless communication systems in 5G and beyond. Prior work has mainly focused on analyzing the performance of these surfaces using computer simulations or lab -level prototypes. To draw accurate insights about the actual performance of these systems, this paper develops an RIS proof-of-concept prototype and extensively evaluates its potential gains in the field and under realistic wireless communication settings. In particular, a 160-element reconfigurable surface, operating at a 5.8GHz band, is first designed, fabricated, and accurately measured in the anechoic chamber. This surface is then integrated into a wireless communication system and the beamforming gains, path-loss, and coverage improvements are evaluated in realistic outdoor communication scenarios. When both the transmitter and receiver employ directional antennas and with 5m and 10m distances between the transmitter-RIS and RIS-receiver, the developed RIS achieves $15$-$20$dB gain in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in a range of $pm60^circ$ beamforming angles. In terms of coverage, and considering a far-field experiment with a blockage between a base station and a grid of mobile users and with an average distance of $35m$ between base station (BS) and the user (through the RIS), the RIS provides an average SNR improvement of $6$dB (max $8$dB) within an area $> 75$m$^2$. Thanks to the scalable RIS design, these SNR gains can be directly increased with larger RIS areas. For example, a 1,600-element RIS with the same design is expected to provide around $26$dB SNR gain for a similar deployment. These results, among others, draw useful insights into the design and performance of RIS systems and provide an important proof for their potential gains in real-world far-field wireless communication environments.
التعليقات
جاري جلب التعليقات جاري جلب التعليقات
mircosoft-partner

هل ترغب بارسال اشعارات عن اخر التحديثات في شمرا-اكاديميا