Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces to Enable Energy-Efficient IoT Networks

In this article, we study the uplink (UL) channel of a cellular network of Internet of Things (IoT) devices assisted by a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) with a limited number of reflecting angle configurations. Firstly, we derive an expression of the required transmit power for the machine-type devices (MTDs) to attain a target signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), considering a channel model that accounts for the RIS discretization into subwavelength reflecting elements. Such an expression demonstrates that the transmit power depends on the target SNR, the position of the MTD in the service area, and the RIS setup, which includes the number of reflecting elements and the available reflecting angle configurations. Secondly, we develop an expression for the expected battery lifetime (EBL) of the MTDs, which explicitly depends on the MTD transmit power. Numerical simulations on the energy efficiency (EE) evaluated via the EBL demonstrate the benefits of adopting RISs to enable energy-efficient IoT networks.