Wireless Communications Through

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

Sharath Kumar G
4NM16EC128

Department of
Electronics & Communication Engineering
 Contents
• Introduction

• Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces

• Conventional two-ray system model

• Conclusion
• References

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 Introduction
• The arrival of 5G has led to new vision in the field of mobile
communications, but meeting the application requirements
such as ultra reliability, low latency, massive connectivity…etc
has been the major issue.
• Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces is found to be one of the
major solution which effectively control the wavefront
without any need of complex decoding, encoding and other
radio frequency processing ooperations

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 Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces
• The RISs are reconfigurable sheets of EM material that
intentionally control the propagation in the environment in
order to enhance the signal quality at the receiver.
• The core idea of RISs is the transformation of the
uncontrollable and random wireless propagation environment
into a reconfigurable communication system entity that plays
an active role in transferring information.
• It has been proposed as a novel and cost-effective solution to
achieve high spectral and energy efficiency for wireless
communications via only low-cost reflecting elements
 How does RISs work?
• The RISs are made of a large number of low-cost and passive
elements that are capable of modifying the radio waves
impinging upon them in ways that naturally occurring
materials are not capable of.

here is an illustration of an RIS made of 20 reconfigurable meta-surfaces

• Intelligent walls are equipped with frequency-selective
surfaces.
• These surfaces have a planar structure and PIN diodes are
embedded on the metal connection parts of each surface
element.
• PIN diodes are switched on and off by an external bias and
provide two different states for the intelligent wall.
• when the PIN diodes are off, the transparent surface allows
the incoming energy to pass through is obtained.
• When the PIN diodes are switched to the second state, the
majority of the incident energy is reflected.
 THE CONVENTIONAL TWO-RAY
SYSTEM MODEL

• Accd. to fermat’s principle, the point G corresponds to the

trajectory that allows the transmitted signal to reach receiver
in least time
• the radio waves (the rays) are assumed to propagate in
straight-line paths if they travel in homogeneous media, and
to bend and split in reflected and refracted signals at the
interface between two dissimilar media.
What makes RISs convenient for wireless
communication?
• They are nearly passive, and, ideally, they do not need any
dedicated energy source.
• They are viewed as a contiguous surface, and, ideally, any
point can shape the wave impinging upon it.
• They are not affected by receiver noise, since, ideally, they do
not need ADC’s, DAC’s or Power amplifiers.
• They can be easily deployed, e.g., on the facades of buildings,
ceilings of factories and indoor spaces, human clothing, etc.
 Conclusion
• This topic has illustrated possible use cases where the RIS may
play a significant role, and have discussed fundamental
research issues to tackle in order to fully exploit the potential
of RISs in wireless networks.

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 References
• https://cemse.kaust.edu.sa/events/event/wireless-communic
ations-reconfigurable-intelligent-surfaces
• Basar et al.: Wireless Communications Through
Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces IEEE paper 2019
• https://www.comsoc.org/publications/magazines/ieee-comm
unications-magazine/cfp/reconfigurable-intelligent-surfaces-d
esign
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDt0JNrOKxk&t=76s

Department of ECE 011

 Thank You
Sharath Kumar G
4NM16EC128

Department of ECE 012