Practical Hardware Models and Beamforming Design for IRS-Assisted MIMO Networks

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) has emerged as a promising technology to enhance wireless communications by smartly shaping the radio propagation environment. In this paper, we integrate the IRS to a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless network via the joint design of the IRS reflecting coefficients and the transmit beamforming at the base station (BS) and user equipment (UE) to enhance the spectral efficiency. We evaluate the impact of different optimization solutions to enhance spectral efficiency considering the hardware model of the IRS. Simulation results indicate that the IRS successfully enhances the performance of the wireless network in terms of spectral efficiency even when the degradation due to realistic hardware models is considered.