新型可重构分布式天线与反射面:性能分析与原型验证

Novel Reconfigurable Distributed Antennas and Reflecting Surface:Performance Analysis and Prototype Evaluation

可重构分布式天线与反射面(Reconfigurable Distributed Antenna and Reflecting Surface, RDARS)作为一种新型的无线通信架构,可以为无线通信系统带来显著的性能增益。基于智能超表面(Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface, RIS)可改变电磁特性,重构了无线传播环境,为系统引入“反射增益”的设计思想,将此设计理念融入分布式天线系统(Distributed Antenna System, DAS),提出了为DAS的射频远端单元(Remote Radio Unit, RRU)赋予反射功能的新型RDARS架构。利用控制电路,RDARS中的每个单元可灵活切换“反射态”与“连接态”。低功耗的“反射态”单元反射信号为无线网络引入“反射增益”,“连接态”单元发射或接收信号获得“分布式增益”。基站与RDARS的联合设计可适配不同的通信需求,实现性能与功耗之间的平衡并显著提升系统性能。通过理论分析、仿真与原型验证,结果验证了RDARS能显著提升系统性能,在未来6G无线通信系统中具有巨大应用前景。

Reconfigurable Distributed Antennas and Reflecting Surface(RDARS),a novel paradigm in wireless communications,has high potential in the next-generation mobile communication systems.Inspired by the Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface(RIS)with the promising characteristic to change electromagnetic wave propagation,the design concept of introducing‘reflection gain into the system by reconstructing the wireless propagation environment is further integrated with the design philosophy of Distributed Antenna Systems(DAS)to propose a novel RDARS architecture,which endows the distributed Remote Radio Unit(RRU)in DAS with reflection functionality.Leveraging control circuits,each element within RDARS is capable of dynamically toggling between‘reflection mode and‘connected mode,thereby introducing‘reflection gain into the wireless network through reflecting elements and enabling the‘distribution gain by‘connection mode elements which transmit or receive signals as distributed antennas.Through joint design of base stations and RDARS to adapt to various communication needs,a controllable tradeoff between performance and power consumption is achieved.RDARS can share existing wired fronthaul links in DAS,ensuring efficient data and control signal transmission between base stations and RDARS.The design concept of RDARS and potential hardware implementation are elucidated in this paper.In addition,theoretical analysis and simulation results verify the advantages of RDARS in improving communication performance.Finally,a preliminary experiment is conducted using a prototype of RDARS.Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that RDARS can significantly boost the system s performance.