RIS-aided multi-hop backhauling for 5G/6G UAV-assisted access points

Abstract: Drones are envisaged as an important part of the future 6G systems. With the possibility of their fast deployment they provide additional connectivity options in form of a hotspot. However, typically in such a use case they require provisioning of a wireless backhaul link to facilitate their proper operation, which might be a challenging task in urban environment. One of the possible ways to connect such nodes is to use the integrate access and backhaul (IAB) approach, where part of the spectrum dedicated for user access at the base station is used for wireless backhauling. Thus, in this work we consider the problem of establishing a multi-hop wireless backhaul link following the IAB concept, with the aid of drone relay stations (DRSs) and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs). We formulate the problem of coverage improvement with fixed number of relays assuming certain throughput requirements on the backhaul. We show with simulations that the use of RISs allows for improvement of coverage in such a scenario or reduction in the number of involved nodes to provide the required backhaul.