RIS-Aware Indoor Network Planning: The Rennes Railway Station Case

Future generations of wireless networks will offer unrivalled performance via unprecedented solutions: meta-surfaces will drive such revolution by enabling control over the surrounding propagation environment, always portrayed as a tamper-proof black box. The reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) technology, envisioned as the discrete version of a metasurface, can dynamically alter the propagation of the impinging signals by, e.g., steering the corresponding beams towards controllable directions. This will unlock new application opportunities and deliver advanced end-user services. However, this fascinating solution comes at non-negligible costs: RISs require ad-hoc design, deployment and management operations to be fully exploited. In this paper, we tackle the RISs placement problem from a theoretical viewpoint, showcasing a large-scale solution on synthetic topologies to improve communication performance while solving the dead-zone problem. Additionally, our mathematical framework is empirically validated in a realistic indoor scenario, the Rennes railway station, showing how a complex indoor propagation environment can be fully disciplined by an advanced RIS installation.

Automated summary

This paper discusses the application of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) technology in wireless networks. By controlling the propagation environment, RIS can improve communication performance and solve dead-zone problems. The authors showcase the capabilities of RIS through theoretical analysis and practical validation in synthetic topologies and real indoor scenarios.