Physically Consistent Models for Intelligent Reflective Surface-Assisted Communications Under Mutual Coupling and Element Size Constraint

We investigate the benefits of mutual coupling effects between the passive elements of intelligent reconfigurable surfaces (IRSs) on maximizing the achievable rate of downlink Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks. In this paper, we present an electromagnetic (EM) coupling model for IRSs whose elements are connected minimum scattering antennas (i.e., dipoles). Using Chu's theory, we incorporate the finite antenna size constraint on each element of the IRS to obtain the IRS mutual impedance matrix. By maximizing the IRS phase shifters using the gradient ascent procedure, our numerical results show that mutual coupling is indeed crucial to avoid the achievable rate degradation when the spacing between IRS elements is down to a fraction of the wavelength.