System-Level Modelling and Beamforming Design for RIS-assisted Cellular Systems

Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is considered as key technology for improving the coverage and network capacity of the next-generation cellular systems. By changing the phase shifters at RIS, the effective channel between the base station and user can be reconfigured to enhance the network capacity and coverage. However, the selection of phase shifters at RIS has a significant impact on the achievable gains. In this letter, we propose a beamforming design for the RIS-assisted cellular systems. We then present in detail the system-level modelling and formulate a 3-dimension channel model between the base station, RIS, and user, to carry out system-level evaluations. We evaluate the proposed beamforming design in the presence of ideal and discrete phase shifters at RIS and show that the proposed design achieves significant improvements as compared to the state-of-the-art algorithms.