Modeling Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces-aided Directional Communications for Multicast Services

• Published in: GLOBECOM 2022 - 2022 IEEE Global Communications Conference pp. 5850 - 5855
• Main Authors: Chukhno, Olga, Chukhno, Nadezhda, Pizzi, Sara, Molinaro, Antonella, Iera, Antonio, Araniti, Giuseppe
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 04-12-2022
• Subjects: 6G mobile communication; Mathematical models; millimeter wave; multicast; Multicast communication; Power control; queuing theory; Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces; Surface waves; Wireless communication
• DOI: 10.1109/GLOBECOM48099.2022.10000930

According to the 6G vision, the evolution of wireless communication systems will soon lead to the possibility of supporting Tbps communications, as well as satisfying, individually or jointly, a plethora of other very stringent quality requirements related to latency, bitrate, and reliability. The achievement of these goals will naturally raise many research issues within radio communications. In this context, a promising 6G wireless communications enabler is the reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) hardware architecture, which has already been recognized as a game-changing way to turn any naturally passive wireless communication setting into an active one. This paper investigates RIS-aided multicast 6G communications by first modeling the system delay as a first-come-first-served (FCFS) M/D/1 queue and analyzing the behavior under different blockage conditions. Then the study of multi-beam operation scenarios, covering multicast and RIS-aided multicast communications, is conducted by leveraging an M/D/c queue model. Achieved results show that large-size RISs outperform even slightly obstructed direct BS-to-user paths. In contrast, RISs of smaller sizes require the design of sophisticated power control and sharing mechanisms to achieve better performance.