Framework for Propagation Modeling of IRS-Assisted Communication Based on Ray Tracing

Abstract

Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) is an emerging technology to improve the performance of wireless systems. As implementing IRS in a wireless network with complex indoor environments is a challenging task, how to perform a realistic simulation study of such a system becomes a necessary and important topic. This paper presents a framework for modeling wireless propagation channels for an IRS-based indoor wireless communication system. The framework adopts ray tracing as the base engine for calculating the power delay profile (PDP) of the transmission paths. Moreover, we propose an approximate method to speed up the simulation without compromising on the level of accuracy. The PDPs calculated by the framework are used to model a deterministic channel for a wireless communication system enhanced by a 20 × 20 IRS.