# A Survey of Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces (IRSs): Towards 6G Wireless Communication Networks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.04789 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.04789/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 8 Jul 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Deep Reinforcement Learning Powered IRS-Assisted Downlink NOMA](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.01414/) (2021)
- [Intelligent Trajectory Design for RIS-NOMA aided Multi-robot Communications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.01647/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) tune wireless environments to increase spectrum and energy efficiencies. In view of much recent attention to the IRS concept as a promising technology for 6G wireless communications, we present a survey of IRSs in this paper. Specifically, we categorize recent research studies of IRSs as follows. For IRS-aided communications, the summary includes capacity/data rate analyses, power/spectral optimizations, channel estimation, deep learning-based design, and reliability analysis. Then we review IRSs implementations as well as the use of IRSs in secure communications, terminal-positioning, and other novel applications. We further identify future research directions for IRSs, with an envision of the IRS technology playing a critical role in 6G communication networks similar to that of massive MIMO in 5G networks. As a timely summary of IRSs, our work will be of interest to both researchers and practitioners working on IRSs for 6G networks.