Intelligent Reflecting Surface Backscatter Enabled Downlink Multi-Cell MIMO Networks

Sai Xu, Jiliang Zhang, Jiajia Liu, Yanan Du, Jie Zhang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper proposes to leverage intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) backscatter to implement downlink communications for a multi-cell multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network, which represents a brand-new communication framework. In such a network, one active macro cell base station (MBS) is deployed for radiating energy signal, while each IRS acts as a small cell base station to realize its own information transmission by modulating and reflecting the signal from the MBS. Under this paradigm, we investigate two optimization problems, namely weighted sum rate maximization problem and max-min fairness problem, aiming at satisfying different communication requirements. To seek their optimal solutions, Lagrangian dual transform and alternate methods are employed to optimize the active beamforming vector at the MBS and the passive beamforming vectors at all the IRSs. Additionally, an element clustering scheme is developed to reduce computation and control complexity, in which each element cluster works like a unit and all clusters can collaborate to communicate with users. Extensive simulations are conducted to evaluate the achievable communication performance and to verify the feasibility of the proposed IRS backscatter enabled downlink multi-cell MIMO network.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)171-184
Number of pages14
JournalIEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications
Volume23
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2024

Keywords

  • backscatter
  • downlink communications
  • element clustering
  • Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)
  • optimization

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