Intelligent Reflective Surfaces for Wireless Networks: An Overview of Applications, Approached Issues, and Open Problems

Abstract

An intelligent reflective surface (IRS) is a novel and revolutionizing communication technology destined to enable the control of the radio environment. An IRS is a real-time controllable reflectarray with a massive number of low-cost passive elements which introduce a phase shift to the incoming signals from the sources before the propagation towards the destination. This technology introduces the notion of a smart propagation environment with the aim of improving the system performance. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive literature overview on IRS technology, including its basic concepts and reconfiguration, as well as its design aspects and applications for wireless communication systems. We also study the performance metrics and the setups considered in recent publications related to IRS and provide suggestions of future research lines based on still unexplored use cases in the state-of-the-art.