Exploring RIS Coverage Enhancement in Factories: From Ray-Based Modeling to Use-Case Analysis

Abstract: Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs) have risen to the forefront of wireless communications research due to their proactive ability to alter the wireless environment intelligently, promising improved wireless network capacity and coverage. Thus, RISs are a pivotal technology in evolving next-generation communication networks. This paper demonstrates a system-level modeling approach for RIS. The RIS model, integrated with the Volcano ray-tracing (RT) tool, is used to analyze the far-field (FF) RIS channel properties in a typical factory environment and explore coverage enhancement at sub-6 GHz and mmWave frequencies. The results obtained in non-line-of-sight (NLoS) scenarios confirm that RIS application is relevant for 5G industrial networks.