As demand for improved indoor wireless signals increases alongside advancements in mobile connectivity, communication devices equipped with smart materials such as intelligent reconfigurable surfaces (IRS) could provide better mobile coverage in buildings with poor reception, whilst also supporting new 6G applications.
Engineers from the University of Glasgow are teaming up with the Tyndall National Institute’s Wireless Communications Laboratory (WCL) on an innovative project called AR-COM. This project focuses on developing active intelligent reconfigurable surfaces to create smarter and more easily programmable wireless applications, paving the way for advancements in 6G wireless communications.
IRS is a cutting‐edge technique that can significantly improve wireless signal propagation. It can efficiently utilize wireless power transfer to enable sustainable Internet of Things (IoT) transmission by reconfiguring the incident signal from the active transmitter.
According to experts, the current base materials used in wireless communications face significant limitations, especially at the higher frequencies that 6G networks require.
A fully-functional, autonomous IRS system can effectively manipulate wireless signals with no signal loss and low latency and maximize signal quality for applications that require user experience data rates of 1 Gbps and peak data rates of 10 Gbps, which are 10 and 50 times higher, respectively, than that of 5G.
