Intelligent Reflecting Surface Assisted Terahertz Communications toward 6G

TL;DR

This paper explores the integration of intelligent reflecting surfaces with Terahertz communications to overcome propagation challenges, proposing beamforming strategies and discussing future 6G applications.

Contribution

It introduces IRS-assisted THz communication as a novel approach to improve signal quality and reduce costs, with strategies for joint beamforming and implementation insights.

Findings

Proposes joint active and passive beamforming techniques.

Develops a beam training strategy for THz IRS systems.

Envisions 6G scenarios integrating IRS with THz communications.

Abstract

Terahertz (THz) communications have emerged as a promising candidate to support the heavy data traffic and exploding network capacity in the future 6G wireless networks. However, THz communications are facing many challenges for practical implementation, such as propagation loss, signal blockage, and hardware cost. In this article, an emerging paradigm of intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) assisted THz communications is analyzed, to address the above issues, by leveraging the joint active and passive beamforming to enhance the communication quality and reduce overheads. Aiming at practical implementation, an overview of the currently available approaches of realizing THz active/passive beam steering at transmitter and IRS is presented. Based on these approaches, a beam training strategy for establishing joint beamforming is then investigated in THz communications. Moreover, various emerging and appealing 6G scenarios that integrate IRS into THz communications are envisioned. Open challenges and future research directions for this new paradigm are finally highlighted.