# Active RIS Versus Passive RIS: Which Is Superior with the Same Power Budget?

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.07510 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07510/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 14 Dec 2021.

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

- [Active RIS-aided EH-NOMA Networks: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.12184/) (2023)
- [Multi-stream Transmission for Directional Modulation Network via Distributed Multi-UAV-aided Multi-active-IRS](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15297/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This letter theoretically compares the active reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-aided system with the passive RIS-aided system. For fair comparison, we consider that these two systems have the same overall power budget that can be used at both the base station (BS) and the RIS. For active RIS, we first derive the optimal power allocation between the BS's transmit signal power and RIS's output signal power. We also analyze the impact of various system parameters on the optimal power allocation ratio. Then, we compare the performance between the active RIS and the passive RIS, which demonstrates that the active RIS would be superior if the power budget is not very small and the number of RIS elements is not very large.