Cylindrical RIS-Assisted Low-Complexity Transmission with Differentiated Visible Regions Exploiting Statistical CSI

TL;DR

This paper proposes a low-complexity RIS design using a cylindrical array with visible regions, enabling efficient multi-user signal management and improved system performance in 6G networks.

Contribution

It introduces a novel RIS architecture with visible regions and a phase shift optimization method that reduces complexity for multi-user scenarios.

Findings

Significant reduction in optimization complexity.

Enhanced system performance demonstrated through simulations.

Improved computational efficiency over traditional RIS designs.

Abstract

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), recognized as a critical enabler for 6G networks, exhibit unprecedented capabilities in electromagnetic wave manipulation and wireless channel reconfiguration. By leveraging existing network infrastructure, RIS can cost-effectively create signal hotspots in low-altitude environments, ensuring robust connectivity to support the sustainable development of the low-altitude economy. However, achieving optimal phase shift design in multi-user scenarios faces two major challenges: the high-dimensional optimization introduced by massive RIS elements, and the persistent coupling of multi-user signals caused by shared RIS reflections. This paper utilize the visible region of an RIS arranged as the uniform cylindrical array (UCA) to reduce the complexity of phase shift design. Under the UCA architecture, RIS elements are categorized into two types: user-specific units and multi-user shared units. We then determine the optimal phase shifts by iteratively optimizing the phase shifts of multi-user shared units while directly configuring those of user-specific units based on a derived closed-form solution. The proposed approach significantly reduces optimization complexity, which is further corroborated by numerical simulation results demonstrating its substantial impact on both system performance and computational efficiency compared to the conventional RIS with uniform planar array.