Towards Ubiquitous Sensing and Localization With Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

TL;DR

This paper explores how reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) can enhance wireless sensing and localization in future cellular systems, aiming for high accuracy and seamless connectivity by controlling environmental electromagnetic properties.

Contribution

It introduces the integration of RIS technology into sensing and localization applications, discusses key challenges, enabling techniques, and presents case studies and future research directions.

Findings

RIS can significantly improve localization accuracy.

RIS-enabled systems can achieve cm-level precision.

Case studies demonstrate practical benefits of RIS in sensing.

Abstract

In future cellular systems, wireless localization and sensing functions will be built-in for specific applications, e.g., navigation, transportation, and healthcare, and to support flexible and seamless connectivity. Driven by this trend, the need rises for fine-resolution sensing solutions and cm-level localization accuracy, while the accuracy of current wireless systems is limited by the quality of the propagation environment. Recently, with the development of new materials, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) provide an opportunity to reshape and control the electromagnetic characteristics of the environment, which can be utilized to improve the performance of wireless sensing and localization. In this tutorial, we will first review the background and motivation to utilize wireless signals for sensing and localization. Next, we introduce how to incorporate RIS into applications of sensing and localization, including key challenges and enabling techniques, and then some case studies will be presented. Finally, future research directions will also be discussed.