With both the standardization and commercialization completed in an unforeseen pace for the 5th generation (5G) wireless network, researchers, engineers and executives from the academia and the industry have turned their sights on candidate technologies to support the next generation wireless networks. Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), sometimes referred to as intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS), have been identified to be potential components of the future wireless networks because they can reconfigure the propagation environment for wireless signals with low-cost passive devices. In doing so, the coverage of a cell can be expected to increase significantly as well as the overall throughput of the network. RIS has not only become an attractive research area but also triggered a couple of projects to develop appropriate solutions to enable the set-up of hardware demonstrations and prototypes. In parallel, technical discussions and activities towards standardization already took off in some regions. Promoting RIS to be integrated into future commercial networks and become a commercial success requires significant standardization work taken place both at regional level standards developing organizations (SDO) and international SDOs such as the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). While many research papers study how RIS can be used and optimized, few effort is devoted to analyzing the challenges to commercialize RIS and how RIS can be standardized. This paper intends to shed some light on RIS from an industrial viewpoint and provide a clear roadmap to make RIS industrially feasible.
翻译:随着第5代(5G)无线网络的标准化和商业化以不可预见的速度完成,学术界和工业界的研究人员、工程师和行政人员开始关注支持下一代无线网络的候选技术,重新配置的智能表面(有时被称为智能反射表面)被确定为未来无线网络的潜在组成部分,因为它们可以重新配置使用低成本被动装置的无线信号的传播环境;通过这样做,预计一个单元的覆盖面将大大增加,以及网络的总体吞吐量。社研所不仅成为一个有吸引力的研究领域,而且还启动了几个项目,以制定适当的解决办法,使硬件演示和原型得以安装。与此同时,一些区域已经开展了标准化的技术讨论和活动。促进科学研究所融入未来的商业网络并成为商业成功,这需要在区域一级标准制定组织(SDO)和国际标准,如第三代伙伴关系项目(3GPP)进行重大的标准化工作。虽然许多研究文件都已经成为一个有吸引力的研究领域,而且还启动了几个项目,以制定适当的解决办法,以便能够建立硬件演示和原型。与此同时,一些区域已经展开技术讨论和标准化活动,以便纳入未来的商业性研究系统研究体系。