Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS)-Aided Vehicular Networks: Their Protocols, Resource Allocation, and Performance

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) assist in paving the way for the evolution of conventional vehicular networks to autonomous driving. Having said that, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) faces numerous open challenges concerning the RIS-aided vehicle-to-everything (V2X) solutions of the near future. To tackle these challenges and to stimulate future research, this article focuses on the prospective transmission design of RIS-aided V2X communications. In particular, two V2X sidelink modes are enhanced by exploiting RISs and their variants, followed by a customized transmission frame structure that partitions the transmission efforts into different phases. Next, effective channel-tracking and resource allocation techniques are developed for attaining a high beamforming gain at low overhead and complexity. Finally, promising research topics are highlighted, and future 3GPP standardization items are proposed for RIS-aided V2X systems.