Two-Timescale Design for Simultaneous Transmitting and Reflecting RIS-Assisted Massive MIMO Systems

This paper investigates the performance of simultaneous transmission and reflection reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS) assisted massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with direct links. We apply the two-timescale scheme to design the base station (BS) beamforming and the phase shifts of the STAR-RIS. Specifically, we derive the closed-form expression of the average achievable rate. Based on the derived rate, we theoretically draw insights from comparing STAR-RIS and conventional RIS under the same condition. Then, we optimize the phase shifts of the STAR-RIS using accelerated gradient ascent algorithm. Finally, numerical results are provided to validate our theoretical insights that STAR-RIS outperforms the conventional RIS under some special cases.