12,740 research outputs found
Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces for Wireless Communications: Principles, Challenges, and Opportunities
Recently there has been a flurry of research on the use of reconfigurable
intelligent surfaces (RIS) in wireless networks to create smart radio
environments. In a smart radio environment, surfaces are capable of
manipulating the propagation of incident electromagnetic waves in a
programmable manner to actively alter the channel realization, which turns the
wireless channel into a controllable system block that can be optimized to
improve overall system performance. In this article, we provide a tutorial
overview of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) for wireless
communications. We describe the working principles of reconfigurable
intelligent surfaces (RIS) and elaborate on different candidate implementations
using metasurfaces and reflectarrays. We discuss the channel models suitable
for both implementations and examine the feasibility of obtaining accurate
channel estimates. Furthermore, we discuss the aspects that differentiate RIS
optimization from precoding for traditional MIMO arrays highlighting both the
arising challenges and the potential opportunities associated with this
emerging technology. Finally, we present numerical results to illustrate the
power of an RIS in shaping the key properties of a MIMO channel.Comment: to appear in the IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and
Networking (TCCN
Receive Combining vs. Multi-Stream Multiplexing in Downlink Systems with Multi-Antenna Users
In downlink multi-antenna systems with many users, the multiplexing gain is
strictly limited by the number of transmit antennas and the use of these
antennas. Assuming that the total number of receive antennas at the
multi-antenna users is much larger than , the maximal multiplexing gain can
be achieved with many different transmission/reception strategies. For example,
the excess number of receive antennas can be utilized to schedule users with
effective channels that are near-orthogonal, for multi-stream multiplexing to
users with well-conditioned channels, and/or to enable interference-aware
receive combining. In this paper, we try to answer the question if the data
streams should be divided among few users (many streams per user) or many users
(few streams per user, enabling receive combining). Analytic results are
derived to show how user selection, spatial correlation, heterogeneous user
conditions, and imperfect channel acquisition (quantization or estimation
errors) affect the performance when sending the maximal number of streams or
one stream per scheduled user---the two extremes in data stream allocation.
While contradicting observations on this topic have been reported in prior
works, we show that selecting many users and allocating one stream per user
(i.e., exploiting receive combining) is the best candidate under realistic
conditions. This is explained by the provably stronger resilience towards
spatial correlation and the larger benefit from multi-user diversity. This
fundamental result has positive implications for the design of downlink systems
as it reduces the hardware requirements at the user devices and simplifies the
throughput optimization.Comment: Published in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 16 pages, 11
figures. The results can be reproduced using the following Matlab code:
https://github.com/emilbjornson/one-or-multiple-stream
Modeling of wide-band MIMO radio channels based on NLoS indoor measurements
Link to published version (if available)
A Survey of Air-to-Ground Propagation Channel Modeling for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs), particularly for small UAVs, due to their affordable
prices, ease of availability, and ease of operability. Existing and future
applications of UAVs include remote surveillance and monitoring, relief
operations, package delivery, and communication backhaul infrastructure.
Additionally, UAVs are envisioned as an important component of 5G wireless
technology and beyond. The unique application scenarios for UAVs necessitate
accurate air-to-ground (AG) propagation channel models for designing and
evaluating UAV communication links for control/non-payload as well as payload
data transmissions. These AG propagation models have not been investigated in
detail when compared to terrestrial propagation models. In this paper, a
comprehensive survey is provided on available AG channel measurement campaigns,
large and small scale fading channel models, their limitations, and future
research directions for UAV communication scenarios
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