Transmission Through Large Intelligent Surfaces: A New Frontier in Wireless Communications

In this paper, transmission through large intelligent surfaces (LIS) that intentionally modify the phases of incident waves to improve the signal quality at the receiver, is put forward as a promising candidate for future wireless communication systems and standards. For the considered LIS-assisted system, a general mathematical framework is presented for the calculation of symbol error probability (SEP) by deriving the distribution of the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Next, the new concept of using the LIS itself as an access point (AP) is proposed. Extensive computer simulation results are provided to assess the potential of LIS-based transmission, in which the LIS acts either as an intelligent reflector or an AP with or without the knowledge of channel phases. Our findings reveal that LIS-based communications can become a game-changing paradigm for future wireless systems.