Integrating Base Station with Intelligent Surface for 6G Wireless Networks: Architectures, Design Issues, and Future Directions

Intelligent surface (IS) technology is promising for sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks, which can effectively reconfigure the wireless propagation environment using dynamically controllable signal reflection/transmission. In particular, integrating passive IS into the base station (BS) is a novel solution to enhance the wireless network throughput and coverage, both cost-effectively and energy-efficiently. In this article, we provide an overview of IS-integrated BSs for wireless networks. Specifically, we present three different practical architectures based on the integrated location of IS and compare them from several key design aspects. Then, the main design issues are discussed for all architectures, which include channel modelling, channel state information (CSI) acquisition, and IS passive reflection/transmission design. Moreover, numerical results are presented to compare the performance of different IS-integrated BS architectures as well as the conventional BS without IS. Finally, promising directions are given to stimulate future research on IS-BS/terminal integration in wireless networks.