Beyond 5G RIS mmWave Systems: Where Communication and Localization Meet
This addresses the need for enhanced performance and new use cases in wireless systems, but it appears incremental as it builds on existing RIS and AI techniques without claiming specific breakthroughs.
The paper argues that to fully exploit reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) in beyond 5G mmWave systems, localization and communication must be tightly integrated, contrasting with earlier generations where localization was secondary.
Upcoming beyond fifth generation (5G) communications systems aim at further enhancing key performance indicators and fully supporting brand new use cases by embracing emerging techniques, e.g., reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), integrated communication, localization, and sensing, and mmWave/THz communications. The wireless intelligence empowered by state-of-the-art artificial intelligence techniques has been widely considered at the transceivers, and now the paradigm is deemed to be shifted to the smart control of radio propagation environment by virtue of RISs. In this article, we argue that to harness the full potential of RISs, localization and communication must be tightly coupled. This is in sharp contrast to 5G and earlier generations, where localization was a minor additional service. To support this, we first introduce the fundamentals of RIS mmWave channel modeling, followed by RIS channel state information acquisition and link establishment. Then, we deal with the connection between localization and communications, from a separate and joint perspective.