Localization, Sensing, and Their Integration with RISs

Book chapter, 2023

The initial studies on the technology of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) focused on unveiling the potential of metasurfaces for improving communication coverage and spatiotemporal focusing, thus, increasing the communication rate. In parallel, there has been progress related to how, when, and why RISs can support localization and radar sensing services, either separately or jointly, which is accompanied with respective analyses as well as dedicated signaling, methods, and protocols. The objective of this chapter is to shed light on some of these aspects. The chapter starts with an introduction to 5G localization and an overview of the advantages of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) in this context. Then, a brief description of the available (RIS) types and channel models for RIS-parameterized wireless links, which are relevant to localization and sensing, follows. The subsequent two sections deal with RIS for localization, sensing, and simultaneous localization and radio mapping. The final section of the chapter includes a list of open challenges and the respective research directions.