Empowering 6G Industrial Indoor Networks: Hands-On Evaluation of IRS-enabled Multi-User mmWave Connectivity

The use of higher frequency bands beyond 6 GHz is considered to be key for future 6G networks. Yet, although generally available for licensing in an increasing number of countries, the 5G FR2 band has not seen much deployment for private networks so far in Europe. The main challenge for these higher frequency bands is proper beam management which allows to react flexibly to the radio conditions. This paper presents a systematic experimental evaluation of a commercial Millimeter-Wave (mmWave) indoor multi-user deployment in various reproducible channel conditions, in particular depending on Line-of-Sight (LOS) availability. We show that the beam management of the analyzed deployment can cope well with multi-user scenarios. When obstructing the LOS, alternative propagation paths are discovered and leveraged to avoid performance degradation. Only in extreme situations, such as in the case of an industry-typical safety cage that provides strong electromagnetic shielding, a significant performance decrease of the mmWave link is noted. To resolve such situations, we demonstrate that our passive Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) solution HELIOS artificially introduces a qualitative reflection path that is seamlessly employed by the network to realize high-capacity communication in challenging radio environments utilizing a Beyond Line-of-Sight (BLOS) link. All-in-all, the evaluation demonstrates the promising potential of mmWave for real-life indoor factory deployments.