Bit Error Rate Analysis for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces with Phase Errors

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the error probability of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS)-enabled communication systems with quantized channel phase compensation over Rayleigh fading channels. The probability density and characteristic functions of the received signal amplitude are derive dand used to compute exact expressions for the bit error rate(BER). The resulting expressions are general, as they hold for an arbitrary number of reflecting elements N, and quantization levels, L. We introduce an exact asymptotic analysis in the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime, from which we demonstrate, in particular, that the diversity order is N/2 when L=2 and N when L >2. The theoretical frameworks and findings are validated with the aid of Monte Carlo simulation.