Six-Ray Street Canyon Propagation Model, Including Intelligent Reflective Surfaces for Wireless Microcell Applications at X-band

Energy aware solution for IRS-aided UAV communication in 6G wireless networks

Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) significantly improves the energy utilization efficiency in 6th generation cellular communication systems. Here, we consider a system with multiple IRS and users, with one user communicating via several IRSs. In such a system, the user to which an IRS is assigned for each unit time must be determined to realize efficient communication. The previous studies on the optimization of various parameters for IRS based wireless systems did not consider the optimization of such IRS allocation scheduling. Therefore, we propose an IRS allocation scheduling method that limits the number of users who allocate each IRS to one unit time and sets the reflection coefficients of the IRS specifically to the assigned user resulting in the maximum IRS array gain. Additionally, as the proposed method is a combinatorial optimization problem, we develop a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization formulation to solve this using quantum computing. This will lead to the optimization of the entire system at a high speed and low power consumption in the future. Using computer simulation, we clarified that the proposed method realizes a more efficient communication compared to the method where one IRS is simultaneously used by multiple users.

In this letter, we consider an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-aided wireless communication system, where an <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">active</i> or <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">passive</i> IRS is employed to assist the communication between an access point and a user. First, we consider the downlink/uplink communication separately and optimize the IRS placement for rate maximization with an active or passive IRS. We show that given the same number of IRS reflecting elements, the active IRS should be deployed closer to the receiver with the IRS’s decreasing amplification power; while in contrast, the passive IRS should be deployed near either the transmitter or receiver. Moreover, with optimized IRS placement, the passive IRS is shown to outperform its active counterpart when the number of reflecting elements is sufficiently large and/or the active-IRS amplification power is too small. Next, we optimize the IRS placement for both active and passive IRSs to maximize the weighted sum-rate of uplink and downlink communications. We show that in this case, the passive IRS is more likely to achieve superior rate performance. This is because the optimal active-IRS placement needs to balance the rate performance in the uplink and downlink, while deploying the passive IRS near the transmitter or receiver is optimal regardless of the uplink or downlink.

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is envisioned to have abundant applications in future wireless networks by smartly reconfiguring the signal propagation for performance enhance- ment. Specifically, an IRS consists of a large number of low- cost passive elements each reflecting the incident signal with a certain phase shift to collaboratively achieve beamforming and suppress interference at one or more designated receivers. In this paper, we study an IRS-enhanced point-to-point multiple- input single-output (MISO) wireless system where one IRS is deployed to assist in the communication from a multi-antenna access point (AP) to a single-antenna user. As a result, the user simultaneously receives the signal sent directly from the AP as well as that reflected by the IRS. We aim to maximize the total received signal power at the user by jointly optimizing the (active) transmit beamforming at the AP and (passive) reflect beamforming by the phase shifters at the IRS. We first propose a centralized algorithm based on the technique of semidefinite relaxation (SDR) by assuming the global channel state information (CSI) available at the IRS. Since the centralized implementation requires excessive channel estimation and signal exchange overheads, we further propose a low-complexity distributed algorithm where the AP and IRS independently adjust the transmit beamforming and the phase shifts in an alternating manner until the convergence is reached. Simulation results show that significant performance gains can be achieved by the proposed algorithms as compared to benchmark schemes. Moreover, it is verified that the IRS is able to drastically enhance the link quality and&#x002F;or coverage over the conventional setup without the IRS.

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is a cost-effective solution for achieving high spectrum and energy efficiency in future wireless networks by leveraging massive low-cost passive elements that are able to reflect the signals with adjustable phase shifts. Prior works on IRS mainly consider continuous phase shifts at reflecting elements, which are practically difficult to implement due to the hardware limitation. In contrast, we study in this paper an IRS-aided wireless network, where an IRS with only a finite number of phase shifts at each element is deployed to assist in the communication from a multi-antenna access point (AP) to multiple single-antenna users. We aim to minimize the transmit power at the AP by jointly optimizing the continuous transmit precoding at the AP and the discrete reflect phase shifts at the IRS, subject to a given set of minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraints at the user receivers. The considered problem is shown to be a mixed-integer non-linear program (MINLP) and thus is difficult to solve in general. To tackle this problem, we first study the single-user case with one user assisted by the IRS and propose both optimal and suboptimal algorithms for solving it. Besides, we analytically show that as compared to the ideal case with continuous phase shifts, the IRS with discrete phase shifts achieves the same squared power gain in terms of asymptotically large number of reflecting elements, while a constant proportional power loss is incurred that depends only on the number of phase-shift levels. The proposed designs for the single-user case are also extended to the general setup with multiple users among which some are aided by the IRS. Simulation results verify our performance analysis as well as the effectiveness of our proposed designs as compared to various benchmark schemes.

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) has emerged as a cost-effective solution to enhance wireless communication performance via passive signal reflection. Existing works on IRS have mainly focused on investigating IRS’s passive beamforming/reflection design to boost the communication rate for users assuming that their channel state information (CSI) is fully or partially known. However, how to exploit IRS to improve the wireless transmission reliability without any CSI, which is typical in high-mobility/delay-sensitive communication scenarios, remains largely open. In this paper, we study a new IRS-aided communication system with the IRS integrated to its aided access point (AP) to achieve both functions of transmit diversity and passive beamforming simultaneously. Specifically, we first show an interesting result that the IRS’s passive beamforming gain in any channel direction is invariant to the common phase-shift applied to all of its reflecting elements. Accordingly, we design the common phase-shift of IRS elements to achieve transmit diversity at the AP side without the need of any CSI of the users. In addition, we propose a practical method for the users to estimate the CSI at the receiver side for information decoding. Meanwhile, we show that the conventional passive beamforming gain of IRS can be retained for the other users with their CSI known at the AP. Furthermore, we derive the asymptotic performance of both IRS-aided transmit diversity and passive beamforming in closed-form, by considering the large-scale IRS with an infinite number of elements. Numerical results validate our analysis and show the performance gains of the proposed IRS-aided simultaneous transmit diversity and passive beamforming scheme over other benchmark schemes.

This work examines the performance gain achieved by deploying an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) in covert communications. To this end, we formulate the joint design of the transmit power and the IRS reflection coefficients by taking into account the communication covertness for the cases with global channel state information (CSI) and without a warden’s instantaneous CSI. For the case of global CSI, we first prove that perfect covertness is achievable with the aid of the IRS even for a single-antenna transmitter, which is impossible without an IRS. Then, we develop a penalty successive convex approximation (PSCA) algorithm to tackle the design problem. Considering the high complexity of the PSCA algorithm, we further propose a low-complexity two-stage algorithm, where analytical expressions for the transmit power and the IRS’s reflection coefficients are derived. For the case without the warden’s instantaneous CSI, we first derive the covertness constraint analytically facilitating the optimal phase shift design. Then, we consider three hardware-related constraints on the IRS’s reflection amplitudes and determine their optimal designs together with the optimal transmit power. Our examination shows that significant performance gain can be achieved by deploying an IRS into covert communications.

In this paper, passive Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) is used to enhance the performance of a Full Duplex (FD) bidirectional Machine Type Communication (MTC) system with two source nodes. Each node is equipped with two antennas to operate in FD mode. In reality, self-interference and discrete phase shifting are two major impairments in FD and IRS-assisted communication, respectively. The self-interference at source nodes operating in FD mode is mitigated by increasing the number of meta-surface elements at the IRS. Bit Error Rate (BER) and outage performances are analyzed with continuous phase shifting and discrete phase shifting in IRS. Closed-form analytical expressions are derived for the outage probability and BER performances of the IRS-assisted bidirectional FD-MTC system with a continuous phase shifter. The outage and BER performances of the IRS-assisted bidirectional MTC system in the FD mode have Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) improvement compared with the IRS-assisted bidirectional MTC system in Half Duplex (HD) mode, as the number of reflecting elements in IRS is doubled in the FD mode. The outage and BER performances are degraded by a discrete phase shifter. Hence, performance degradation of the proposed IRS-assisted bidirectional FD-MTC is examined for 1-bit shifter (0, π), 2-bit shifter (0, π/2, π, 3π/2), and for 3-bit shifter (0, π/4, π/2, 3π/4, π, 5π/4, 3π/2, 7π/4). The performance degradation when a discrete phase shifter is employed in IRS is compared with the ideal continuous phase shifter in IRS. Further, achievable rate analysis is carried out for finding the best location of the IRS in a bidirectional FD-MTC system.

In this paper, we propose intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS) assisted secure wireless communications with multi-input and multi-output antennas (IRS-MIMOME). The considered scenario is an access point (AP) equipped with multiple antennas communicates with a multi-antenna enabled legitimate user in the downlink at the present of an eavesdropper configured with multiple antennas. Particularly, the joint optimization of the transmit covariance matrix at the AP and the reflecting coefficients at the IRS to maximize the secrecy rate for the IRS-MIMOME system is investigated, with two different assumptions on the phase shifting capabilities at the IRS, i.e., the IRS has the continuous reflecting coefficients and the IRS has the discrete reflecting coefficients. For the former case, due to the non-convexity of the formulated problem, an alternating optimization (AO)-based algorithm is proposed, i.e., for given the reflecting coefficients at the IRS, the successive convex approximation (SCA)-based algorithm is used to solve the transmit covariance matrix optimization, while given the transmit covariance matrix at the AP, alternative optimization is used again in individually optimizing of each reflecting coefficient at the IRS with other fixed reflecting coefficients. For the individual reflecting coefficient optimization, the closed-form or an interval of the optimal solution is provided. Then, the proposed algorithm is extended to the discrete reflecting coefficient model at the IRS. Finally, some numerical simulations have been done to demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms other benchmark schemes.

Recently, the intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) has become a promising technology for energy-, and spectrum-efficient communications by reconfiguring the radio environment. In this paper, we consider multiple-input single-output (MISO) transmissions from a multi-antenna access point (AP) to a receiver, assisted by a practical IRS with a power budget constraint. The IRS can work in energy harvesting, and signal reflecting phases. It firstly harvests RF energy from the AP's signal beamforming, and then uses it to sustain its operations in the signal reflecting phase. We aim to characterize the maximum capacity by optimizing the AP's transmit beamforming, the IRS's time allocation in two operational phases, and the IRS's passive beamforming to enhance the information rate. To solve the non-convex maximization problem, we exploit its structural properties, and decompose it into two sub-problems in two phases. The IRS's phase shift optimization in the reflecting phase follows a conventional passive beamforming problem to maximize the received signal power. In the energy harvesting phase, the IRS's time allocation, and the AP's transmit beamforming are jointly optimized using monotonic optimization. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

As the number of antennas increases, the massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system can precisely point to user equipments (UEs) with narrow beams. Accurate and timely channel state information (CSI) feedback is crucial to keep UEs in service. Mobile UEs, however, may suffer from the narrow beam nature of the massive MIMO system since UEs can move out of the beam coverage. When intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is applied to the massive MIMO system, the adjustment of the IRS cannot be frequent as the IRS is controlled remotely by the base station (BS). Limiting the number of CSI feedback and the number of both BS and IRS adjustments significantly reduces the overhead of transmission and computation to the system. In this paper, we consider the UEs’ mobility adaptation problem in an IRS assisted multiuser massive MIMO downlink system with infrequent CSI feedback. We propose a beam control method that adapts to UEs’ mobility. The problem is constructed as a sum rate problem where both the BS and IRS are taken into account to jointly optimize the beamforming matrices. Simulation results show that our proposed algorithm can converge quickly and provide satisfactory performance for mobile UEs. At the same time, our proposed algorithm reduces the frequency of updating the beamforming matrices effectively both at the BS and at the IRS.

A Survey of Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces: Performance Analysis, Extensions, Potential Challenges, and Open Research Issues

This work considers covert communications with the aid of an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS). We jointly design the transmit power and IRS's reflection phase shifts and amplitudes to enhance covert communication performance. To this end, we first derive the total detection error rate at a warden. We then determine the IRS's optimal phase shifts and develop an effective one-dimensional search method to identify the IRS's optimal amplitudes. We show that the IRS can significantly improve the achievable covertness. In addition, optimizing the IRS's amplitudes on top of its phase shifts significantly outperforms fixing them as unit in covert communications.

This paper investigates an intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) aided green multiple-user downlink communication system. In contrast to the existing works that deploy the IRS in a fixed location, the location of the IRS is taken as an optimization variable to minimize the total transmit power by jointly optimizing the location of the IRS, transmit beamformers at the base station (BS), and IRS phase shifts. We point out a critical conclusion that before and after IRS deployment, the channel state information (CSI) of all the communication terminals is different, so an offline-online hybrid-CSI optimization framework is proposed to solve the problem. In the offline stage, we optimize the IRS location with only the statistical CSI (S-CSI) so the ergodic quality of service (QoS) constraints have to be considered, and universal lower bounds associated only with the location variable are derived to decouple all variables. In the online stage, all the instantaneous-CSI (I-CSI) are available. To solve this non-convex problem, an alternating optimization framework is developed. We propose a Riemannian Manifold (RM) algorithm to optimize the IRS phase shifts. Simulation results validate that the proposed algorithm is convergent and effective, and show that the location deployment of IRS is crucial for green communication.

Visible light positioning (VLP) systems have gained attention for their ability to operate without additional infrastructure. However, most positioning schemes rely on multiple LEDs, which presents a considerable challenge in scenarios where only a single-light-source is available. To address this issue, this work proposes using intelligent reflective surfaces (IRS) as virtual light sources for VLP. To our knowledge, a novel positioning scheme, referred to as the difference of received signal strength, is proposed to mitigate spatial interference from multiple IRS and accurately estimate their power, enabling positioning even with a blocked line-of-sight link. Unlike maximum likelihood estimators, this scheme eliminates the need for a precise noise model. Meanwhile, the Cramér-Rao lower bound is derived to analyze the impact of IRS parameters such as rotation angle, layout, and quantity, on positioning accuracy. Theoretical analysis indicates that IRS orientation and layout greatly influence positioning accuracy, with layout offering more significant improvement than IRS quantity. Simulation results demonstrate that the scheme achieves a positioning accuracy of 0.056m with 16 IRS units, with further improvements through additional optimization. Moreover, the results align with theoretical analysis, with an optimized layout reducing the positioning error to 0.028m, highlighting its pivotal role in enhancing IRS performance.