Network Coexistence Analysis of RIS-Assisted Wireless Communications

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) have attracted the attention of academia and industry circles because of their ability to control the electromagnetic characteristics of channel environments. However, it has been found that the introduction of an RIS may bring new and more serious network coexistence problems. It may even further deteriorate the network performance if these new network coexistence problems cannot be effectively solved. In this paper, an RIS network coexistence model is proposed and discussed in detail, and these problems are deeply analysed. Two novel RIS design mechanisms, including a novel multilayer RIS structure with an out-of-band filter and an RIS blocking mechanism, are further explored. Finally, numerical results and a discussion are given. © 2013 IEEE.