Beamforming

Wireless

Computer science

Telecommunications

Non-line-of-sight propagation

Signal-to-noise ratio (imaging)

IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is a promising technology to reconfigure wireless channels, which brings a new degree of freedom for the design of future wireless networks. This article proposes a new three-dimensional (3D) wireless system architecture enabled by aerial IRS (AIRS). Compared to the conventional terrestrial IRS, AIRS enjoys more deployment flexibility as well as wider-view signal reflection, thanks to its high altitude and thus more likelihood of establishing line-of-sight (LoS) links with ground source/destination nodes. We aim to maximize the worst-case signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over all locations in a target area by jointly optimizing the transmit beamforming for the source node, as well as the placement and 3D passive beamforming for the AIRS. The formulated problem is non-convex and difficult to solve. To gain useful insights, we first consider the special case of maximizing the SNR at a given target location, for which the optimal solution is obtained in closed-form. The result sho...

Aerial Intelligent Reflecting Surface: Joint Placement and Passive Beamforming Design With 3D Beam Flattening