MARISA: A Self-configuring Metasurfaces Absorption and Reflection Solution Towards 6G

TL;DR

This paper introduces MARISA, a self-configuring metasurface solution for 6G that eliminates the need for control channels, simplifying deployment and maintaining high performance in wireless environments.

Contribution

The paper proposes MARISA, a novel self-configuring metasurface that operates without control channels, enabling easier deployment for 6G networks under the IoS paradigm.

Findings

MARISA achieves performance comparable to control channel-driven RISs.

Self-configuring metasurfaces simplify deployment in wireless environments.

MARISA operates seamlessly without modifications to existing mobile networks.

Abstract

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs) are considered one of the key disruptive technologies towards future 6G networks. RISs revolutionize the traditional wireless communication paradigm by controlling the wave propagation properties of the impinging signals as required. A major roadblock for RIS is though the need for a fast and complex control channel to continuously adapt to the ever-changing wireless channel conditions. In this paper, we ask ourselves the question: Would it be feasible to remove the need for control channels for RISs? We analyze the feasibility of devising Self-Configuring Smart Surfaces that can be easily and seamlessly installed throughout the environment, following the new Internet-of-Surfaces (IoS) paradigm, without requiring modifications of the deployed mobile network. To this aim, we design MARISA, a self-configuring metasurfaces absorption and reflection solution, and show that it can achieve a better-than-expected performance rivaling with control channel-driven RISs.