Performance Assessment of Intelligent Reflective Surfaces-aided Network with Residual Hardware Impairments

In this paper, we analyze the outage probability (OP)performance of a wireless communication network assisted by an intelligent, reflective surface (IRS) in the presence of residual hardware impairments (RHI). The setup consists of a transmitter aiming to communicate with a receiver, whereas an IRS array aims at maximizing the system’s reliability by boosting the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the legitimate receiver’s side to decrease the system’s OP. The receiver’s hardware has imperfections that make a portion of the received signal, impaired by the wireless channel, contribute to the receiver noise. In addition to this, we consider that the IRS induces phase quantization errors due to the finite bit resolution. A closed-form formula for the system’s OP is provided in terms of the main system parameters. Numerical results indicate the sensitivity of RIS-aided schemes to the level of RHI at the receiver, while the OP is not enhanced significantly when we exceed 3 bits of phase shift resolution.