Toward a Heterogeneous Smart Electromagnetic Environment for Millimeter-Wave Communications: An Industrial Viewpoint

Fifth generation (5G) and beyond communication systems open the door to millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency bands to leverage the extremely large operating bandwidths and deliver unprecedented network capacity. These frequency bands are affected by high propagation losses that severely limit the achievable coverage. The simplest way to address this problem would be to increase the number of installed mmWave base stations (BSs), at the same time augmenting the overall network cost, power consumption, and electromagnetic field (EMF) levels. As alternative direction, here we propose to complement the macro-layer of mmWave BSs with a heterogeneous deployment of smart electromagnetic (Smart EM) entities—namely IAB nodes, smart repeaters, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) and passive surfaces—that is judiciously planned to minimize the total installation costs while at the same time optimizing the network spectral efficiency. Initial network planning results underline the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The available technologies and the key research directions for achieving this view are thoroughly discussed by accounting for issues ranging from system-level design to the development of new materials.