End-to-End Simulation of 5G Networks Assisted by IRS and AF Relays

Abstract

The high propagation and penetration loss experienced at millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies requires ultradense deployments of 5th generation (5G) base stations, which may be infeasible and costly for network operators. Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) has been proposed to partially address this issue, even though raising concerns in terms of power consumption and scalability. Recently, the research community has been investigating Intelligent Reflective Surfaces (IRSs) and Amplify-and-Forward (AF) relays as more energy-efficient alternatives to solve coverage issues in 5G scenarios. Along these lines, this paper relies on a new simulation framework, based on ns-3, to simulate IRS/AF systems with a full-stack, end-to-end perspective, with considerations on to the impact of the channel model and the protocol stack of 5G NR networks. Our goal is to demonstrate whether these technologies can be used to relay 5G traffic requests and, if so, how to dimension IRS/AF nodes as a function of the number of end users.

Spectral and energy efficiency analysis of IRS-assisted dual UAVs detection system

“…Although 5G physical layer technology is usually able to adapt to space and time-varying wireless environment, signal propagation is essentially random and largely uncontrollable [1]. For the above reasons, intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is considered as a promising new technology, which can reconfigure the wireless propagation environment by controlling the reflection through software [2][3][4]. Specifically, IRS is a plane composed of a large number of low-cost passive reflection elements, each element can independently induce the amplitude and/or phase changes of the incident signal, so as to achieve fine three-dimensional (3D) reflection beamforming.…”