UAV reconfigurable intelligent surface aided wireless communication systems

Abstract

The use of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs) for communication to aid terrestrial base stations is analysed. In this research, the performance of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces(RIS) is compared with aerial relays in terms of coverage and spectral efficiency when both systems are integrated with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs). First, a 3D model of the UAV wireless communication system is designed with users distributed randomly, UAVs are at defined locations and a terrestrial base station is in the network. In this network, the UAVs are acting as aerial relays. The coverage probability of the UAV wireless network using UAV Relays as a function of path loss exponent, UAV altitude and target information rate is analyzed as well as the spectral efficiency as a function of target information rate. The use of a Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface with the UAVs is then proposed as a solution to improve the performance of the UAV wireless communication system. A 3D model of the UAV-RIS aided system is designed with the RIS integrated with the UAVs in the network. The performance of the RIS aided system is then compared with the UAV Relay system and the results show that the RIS aided system has higher coverage probability and spectral efficiency.