RIS-enabled smart wireless environments: deployment scenarios, network architecture, bandwidth and area of influence
Review article, 2023

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) constitute the key enabler for programmable electromagnetic propagation environments and are lately being considered as a candidate physical-layer technology for the demanding connectivity, reliability, localisation, and sustainability requirements of next-generation wireless networks. In this paper, we first present the deployment scenarios for RIS-enabled smart wireless environments that have been recently designed within the ongoing European Union Horizon 2020 RISE-6G project, as well as a network architecture integrating RISs with existing standardised interfaces. We identify various RIS deployment strategies and sketch the core architectural requirements in terms of RIS control and signalling, depending on the RIS hardware architectures and respective capabilities. Furthermore, we introduce and discuss, with the aid of simulations and reflect array measurements, two novel metrics that emerge in the context of RIS-empowered wireless systems: the RIS bandwidth of influence and the RIS area of influence. Their extensive investigation corroborates the need for careful deployment and planning of the RIS technology in future wireless networks.

Smart wireless environments

Wave propagation control

Bandwidth of influence

Area of influence

Network architecture

Deployment scenarios

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces

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Published in

Eurasip Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking

1687-1472 (ISSN) 1687-1499 (eISSN)

Vol. 2023 Issue 1 art. no 103

Research Project(s)

Reconfigurable Intelligent Sustainable Environments for 6G Wireless Networks

European Commission (EC) (EC/2020/101017011), 2021-01-01 -- 2023-12-31.

Categorizing

Areas of Advance

Information and Communication Technology

Subject Categories (SSIF 2011)

Telecommunications

Communication Systems

Identifiers

DOI

10.1186/s13638-023-02295-8

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Latest update

12/25/2023