Design and Evaluation of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces in Real-World Environment

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) have promising coverage and data-rate gains for wireless communication systems in 5G beyond. Prior work has mainly focused on analyzing the performance of these using simulations or lab-level prototypes. To draw accurate insights about actual systems, this paper develops an RIS proof-of-concept prototype extensively evaluates its potential field under realistic settings. In particular, a 160-element RIS, operating at 5.8 GHz band, is designed, fabricated, accurately measured anechoic chamber. This surface then integrated into system beamforming gains, pathloss, improvements are evaluated outdoor scenarios. When both transmitter receiver employ directional antennas, developed achieves 15–20 dB gain signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) range ±60° angles. terms coverage, considering far-field experiment with blockage between basestation grid mobile users average signal path 35 m, provides SNR improvement 6 (max 8 dB) within area > 75 m2. Thanks to scalable design, can be directly increased larger areas. For example, single 1,600-element same design expected provide 26 similar deployment (theoretical estimation). These results useful important proof their real-world environments.