On the Performance of Partial LIS for 6G Systems

One of the key technologies of 6G communications relies on large intelligent surfaces (LIS), which can be viewed as a near-field beamformer that is supportive of extremely high symbol rates and enables a high level of interference avoidance. This article focuses on LIS systems, analysing the impact of the use of a whole LIS system or a subset of an antenna array. We analyse an LIS system associated with a single carrier with frequency domain equalization (SC-FDE), and with different receiver types of varying complexities. Because it is a function of the number of antennas, the computational complexity decreases when antenna elements that are closer to the user equipment are used instead of the whole LIS. Moreover, with a partial LIS, a reduction of energy consumption is achieved, and mitigation of the interference levels is obtained, allowing a performance very close to that obtained with the whole LIS system.