Demo: Enhancing Wireless Connectivity in Skip Zones via Energy-Efficient Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface

The efficacy of a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided network for enhanced connectivity in skip zones is demonstrated through real-time video streaming. The demonstration is carried out with the help of National Instruments universal software radio peripheral (NI-USRP) devices integrated with an RIS prototype. The RIS prototype is designed and fabricated using a 16x10 metasur-face operating at 5.3 GHz carrier frequency. Utilizing LabVIEW's long-term evolution (LTE) application framework module, good connectivity between the transmitter and receiver in an otherwise skip zone is exhibited. Various modulation and coding schemes have been applied to the streamed data to observe the throughput, SINR, and constellation diagrams with respect to different positions of the receiver in the non-line of sight (NLOS) skip zone. The demonstration ratifies the potential of RIS system in practical applications related to future wireless communications.