End-to-End Mutual Coupling Aware Communication Model for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces: An Electromagnetic-Compliant Approach Based on Mutual Impedances

Gabriele Gradoni (1) , Marco Di Renzo (2, 3, 4)

1 UON - University of Nottingham, UK
2 L2S - Laboratoire des signaux et systèmes
3 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
4 Université Paris-Saclay

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) are an emerging technology for application to wireless networks. We introduce a physics and electromagnetic (EM) compliant communication model for analyzing and optimizing RIS-assisted wireless systems. The proposed model has four main notable attributes: (i) it is end-to-end, i.e., it is formulated in terms of an equivalent channel that yields a one-to-one mapping between the voltages fed into the ports of a transmitter and the voltages measured at the ports of a receiver; (ii) it is EM-compliant, i.e., it accounts for the generation and propagation of the EM fields; (iii) it is mutual coupling aware, i.e., it accounts for the mutual coupling among the sub-wavelength unit cells of the RIS; and (iv) it is unit cell aware, i.e., it accounts for the intertwinement between the amplitude and phase response of the unit cells of the RIS.

Domains: Electronics

Gabriele Gradoni, Marco Di Renzo. End-to-End Mutual Coupling Aware Communication Model for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces: An Electromagnetic-Compliant Approach Based on Mutual Impedances. IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, 2021, ⟨10.1109/LWC.2021.3050826⟩. ⟨hal-03372984⟩