Abstract
This paper surveys the optimization frameworks and performance analysis methods for large intelligent surfaces (LIS), which have been emerging as strong candidates to support the sixth-generation wireless physical platforms (6G). Due to their ability to adjust the behavior of interacting electromagnetic (EM) waves through intelligent manipulations of the reflections phase shifts, LIS have shown promising merits at improving the spectral efficiency of wireless networks. In this context, researchers have been recently exploring LIS technology in depth as a means to achieve programmable, virtualized, and distributed wireless network infrastructures. From a system level perspective, LIS have also been proven to be a low-cost, green, sustainable, and energy-efficient solution for 6G systems. This paper provides a unique blend that surveys the principles of operation of LIS, together with their optimization and performance analysis frameworks. The paper first introduces the LIS technology and its physical working principle. Then, it presents various optimization frameworks that aim to optimize specific objectives, namely, maximizing energy efficiency, sum-rate, secrecy-rate, and coverage. The paper afterwards discusses various relevant performance analysis works including capacity analysis, the impact of hardware impairments on capacity, uplink/downlink data rate analysis, and outage probability. The paper further presents the impact of adopting the LIS technology for positioning applications. Finally, we identify numerous exciting open challenges for LIS-aided 6G wireless networks, including resource allocation problems, hybrid radio frequency/visible light communication (RF-VLC) systems, health considerations, and localization.
Highlights
T HE recent advent of large intelligent surfaces (LIS) empowers smart radio environments at overcoming the large power consumption and the probabilistic nature of electromagnetic (EM) wave transmission, thereby improving both the quality of service (QoS) and radio connectivity [1]
Intelligent metasurfaces are programmable frequency-selective surfaces that are composed of artificial thin meta-material films, that are adequate for energy-efficient and low-complexity wireless communications [4], [5]
LIS-assisted communication can be seen as an enhanced platform of conventional wireless communication systems, as LIS bring in more degrees of freedom via controlling the wireless channel
Summary
T HE recent advent of large intelligent surfaces (LIS) empowers smart radio environments at overcoming the large power consumption and the probabilistic nature of electromagnetic (EM) wave transmission, thereby improving both the quality of service (QoS) and radio connectivity [1]. Alghamdi et al.: Intelligent Surfaces for 6G Wireless Networks: A Survey of Optimization and Performance Analysis Techniques and smart radio environment in a software-controlled fashion, which boosts the communication capabilities. Softwaredefined or reconfigurable EM meta-surfaces are the fundamental technology behind the LIS implementation that is capable of modulating data onto the received signals [3], customizing changes to the radio waves, and intelligently sensing the environment. The authors in [26] provided an overview of the performance analysis and optimization in LIS-assisted networks, as a means to achieve different wireless communications objectives. Our paper first entails the physical working principle of LIS It introduces the optimization schemes for LIS-based systems, which include energy efficiency, power optimization, sumrate, secrecy-rate, and coverage.
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