Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Integrated User-Centric Network: Architecture and Optimization

By thoroughly transforming the traditional base-station-centric architecture to user-centric architecture, user-centric networking (UCN), a promising technology with disruptive innovation, will provide better services for users in the next generation communication systems. As another promising technology, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), which has been widely explored by academia and industry, can be used to implement bypassing obstacle communication, optimizing interference management, and reducing energy consumption in UCN. To achieve low-cost, highly robust, and energy-efficient user-centric communication, we propose a novel RIS integrated UCN architecture. In the proposed architecture, RIS is used to extend service coverage, enhance service quality, suppress interference, as well as provide low-cost and highly energy-efficient user-centric communication by replacing some required access points in UCN. To further exploit the advantages of RIS, we perform joint optimization on passive beamforming and power allocation, aiming to maximize the sum rate of all users. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed joint optimization scheme outperforms reference schemes in terms of sum rate and energy efficiency.