Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces: Principles and Opportunities

By Yuanwei Liu, Xiao Liu, Xidong Mu, Tianwei Hou, Jiaqi Xu, M. Di Renzo, Naofal Al-Dhahir. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, 2020

1,741 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs), also known as intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs), or large intelligent surfaces (LISs),1 have received significant attention for their potential to enhance the capacity and coverage of wireless networks by smartly reconfiguring the wireless propagation environment. Therefore, RISs are considered a promising technology for the sixth-generation (6G) of communication networks. In this context, we provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art on RISs, with focus on their operating principles, performance evaluation, beamforming design and resource management, applications of machine learning to RIS-enhanced wireless networks, as well as the integration of RISs with other emerging technologies. We describe the basic principles of RISs both from physics and communications perspectives, based on which we present performance evaluation of multiantenna assisted RIS systems. In addition, we systematically survey existing designs for RIS-enhanced wireless networks encompassing performance analysis, information theory, and performance optimization perspectives. Furthermore, we survey existing research contributions that apply machine learning for tackling challenges in dynamic scenarios, such as random fluctuations of wireless channels and user mobility in RIS-enhanced wireless networks. Last but not least, we identify major issues and research opportunities associated with the integration of RISs and other emerging technologies for applications to next-generation networks.1Without loss of generality, we use the name of RIS in the remainder of this paper.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Ocean Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/01f29addca4dc6f189f903cb133dea7585813a6f

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

1. Yuanwei Liu
2. Xidong Mu
3. Robert Schober
4. Naofal Al-Dhahir
5. M. Di Renzo
6. Rui Zhang
7. Zhiguo Ding
8. Shuowen Zhang

In Ocean Engineering

1. Yuanwei Liu
2. Shuowen Zhang
3. Xidong Mu
4. Naofal Al-Dhahir
5. M. Di Renzo
6. Robert Schober
7. Li Guo
8. Jiaru Lin

Citations in the corpus

• An Overview of Signal Processing Techniques for RIS/IRS-Aided Wireless Systems (2021, neutral): “cent developments in this area, including the technical challenges [33], operation principles [34], transmission design and applications [35], electromagnetic modeling [36], practical de-”
• Near-Field Communications: A Tutorial Review (2023, methodology): “On the other hand, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) another revolutionary 6G technique, embody an ELAA with passive elements [8].”
• Simultaneously Transmitting And Reflecting (STAR) RIS Aided Wireless Communications (2021, background): “Furthermore, RISs can be seamlessly integrated into existing wireless networks by deploying them on diverse structures, such as roadside billboards, building facades, windows, and even human clothes [7].”
• Evolution of NOMA Toward Next Generation Multiple Access (NGMA) for 6G (2021, background): “Given the above favorable properties of RISs, extensive research efforts have been devoted to investigating the benefits of RIS-aided communication systems, such as the mitigation of interference [102], the reduction of transmit power [103], and the enhancement of communication secrecy [104].”
• Seven Defining Features of Terahertz (THz) Wireless Systems: A Fellowship of Communication and Sensing (2021, neutral): “tentially satisfy the co-phase condition and operate in the near-field [38].”
• STAR-RISs: Simultaneous Transmitting and Reflecting Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (2021, methodology): “Base on the field equivalence principle [3], as the STAR-RIS elements are excited by the incident signal, the transmitted and reflected signals can be equivalently treated as waves radiated from the time-varying surface equivalent electric currents Jp and magnetic currents Jb (also referred to as th”
• What Will the Future of UAV Cellular Communications Be? A Flight From 5G to 6G (2021, background): “one’s advantage, enhancing the link efficiency and reliability [113]–[121].”