Design and cross-layer optimization of low cost RIS-assisted communication systems

The deployment of RISs in future 6G networks is expected to substantially improve mobile network coverage. This paper introduces a new cross-layer low-complexity scheme for the online optimization of RIS-assisted communication systems. It jointly combines BS and RIS configuration and fair UEs’ scheduling which is critical for high-performance deployments. A RIS beam synthesis method is especially proposed for RIS configuration. The proposed solution embeds two nested control loops: i) a fast control loop working at the OFDMA slot scale and consisting in a standard UEs proportional fair scheduler, and ii) a slow control loop operating at the OFDMA frame scale which adapts the RIS’ configuration to the UEs’ spatial distribution and maximizes the UEs’ aggregated performance. The slow control loop is based on an online stochastic approximation algorithm whose convergence to the optimal restpoint is proved. In a reference scenario, the proposed scheduler achieves a gain of 47% in mean spectral efficiency for NLOS UEs over a baseline scheme.