Intelligent Reflecting Surface Assisted Terahertz Communications

Abstract

Terahertz (THz) band communication is a promising technology for the 6G wireless networks. However, due to very high spread attenuation and molecular absorption, THz frequencies provide a limited coverage area and need novel solutions to overcome these constraints. Further, intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS) is introduced to enhance the coverage area by reconfiguring the wireless propagation environment. Therefore, in this paper, an IRS-assisted THz system is designed and analyzed and referred to as IRS-TH system. The proposed IRS-TH significantly improves bit error rate (BER) performance by passive beamforming at the IRS panel. Impact of IRS-TH parameters such as different phase shifting methods, the position of IRS panel, and line-of-sight path is studied. Exhaustive simulation results show that the proposed IRS-TH can significantly enhance BER and sum-rate performance as compared to conventional THz system without IRS. © 2022 IEEE.