A Practical and Simple Detection and Identification Scheme for RIS-Assisted Systems

Abstract

Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-empowered communication is one of the promising physical layer enabling technologies for the upcoming sixth generation (6G) wireless networks due to their unprecedented capabilities in shaping the wireless communication environment. In this paper, we consider the unique problem of RIS identification in a mobile wireless network where multiple RISs are deployed to assist the base station (BS)-user equipment (UE) communication. Here, considering dynamic link blockages, we aim to enable the BS to perceive the UE-RIS potential associations for better resource allocation. Specifically, we first introduce a novel network-level problem where the BS aims to detect and uniquely identify RISs that are reachable by a specific UE (UE-RIS-BS link is available) in a given time slot. Next, to solve this problem, we propose a novel RIS identification and detection (RIS-ID) scheme that enables the BS to pair UEs with their corresponding reachable RISs in a given time slot. On the BS side, the proposed RIS-ID scheme can be used as an initial and essential step before optimizing each RIS to serve its nearby UE, for more efficient resource allocation. Furthermore, to assess the proposed RIS-ID scheme, we propose two performance metrics: the false and miss-detection probabilities. These probabilities are analytically derived and verified through computer simulations, revealing the effectiveness of the proposed RIS-ID scheme under different operating scenarios.