System Performance Insights into Design of RIS-assisted Smart Radio Environments for 6G

In state-of-the-art wireless networks, the radio environment is beyond the control of the operators which leads to several issues. For example, signal attenuation limits radio connectivity, multi-path propagation results in fading phenomena and reflections/refractions from large objects are the main sources of uncontrollable interference. To overcome these issues, a new technology referred to as reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) has been brought to light. RISs, whose interactions with the electromagnetic waves are reconfigurable, are at the heart of the smart radio environments for beyond 5G (or 6G) wireless systems. Research on design of smart radio environments is still in infancy. To this end, this paper provides performance insights for design of RIS-assisted smart radio environments. By extending a recent system-level simulator and through extensive simulations, it investigates the impact of positioning/placement of RISs, the number of reflecting elements and the tilt/rotation of RISs in both single and multi-RIS environments. Results reveal that these aspects are crucial to achieving capacity and reliability enhancements in smart radio environments.