Surface-Based Techniques for IoT Networks: Opportunities and Challenges

This work provides an overview of recent techniques in the area of surface-based communications, describing their potential and advantages for IoT networks. Specifically, it is discussed how the use of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces could bring significant advantages in terms of energy consumption, self-sustainment, programmability, and self-organization of IoT networks, possibly enabling the use of mmWaves for IoT, and the improvement of back-scattering techniques. The newest paradigms in the area of surface-based communications are described, including nearly-passive surfaces, active surfaces, and plug-and-play surfaces, explaining how these advanced frameworks fit into the IoT context. Numerical examples are shown to substantiate the gains that surface-based communications can provide for IoT. Finally, open research directions are identified together with the main research challenges towards the implementation of energy-neutral, self-organizing surface-based IoT environments.