Intelligent Reflecting Surface Enhanced Wireless Network Via Joint Active and Passive Beamforming

This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TWC.2019.2936025, IEEE
Transactions on Wireless Communications
Intelligent Reflecting Surface Enhanced Wireless

Network via Joint Active and Passive Beamforming
Qingqing Wu, Member, IEEE and Rui Zhang, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is a revolutionary and complex signal processing are needed for achieving high-
and transformative technology for achieving spectrum and energy performance communication at mmWave frequencies, espe-
efficient wireless communication cost-effectively in the future. cially when massive MIMO is employed to exploit the small
Specifically, an IRS consists of a large number of low-cost passive
elements each being able to reflect the incident signal indepen- wavelengths. Moreover, adding an excessively large number
dently with an adjustable phase shift so as to collaboratively of active components such as small-cell BSs/relays/remote
achieve three-dimensional (3D) passive beamforming without the radio heads (RRHs) in wireless networks also causes a more
need of any transmit radio-frequency (RF) chains. In this paper, aggravated interference issue. As such, innovative research on
we study an IRS-aided single-cell wireless system where one IRS finding both spectrum and energy efficient techniques with
is deployed to assist in the communications between a multi-
antenna access point (AP) and multiple single-antenna users. low hardware cost is still imperative for realizing a sustainable
We formulate and solve new problems to minimize the total wireless network evolution with scalable cost in the future [4].
transmit power at the AP by jointly optimizing the transmit In this paper, intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is proposed
beamforming by active antenna array at the AP and reflect as a promising new solution to achieve the above goal. Specif-
beamforming by passive phase shifters at the IRS, subject to ically, IRS is a planar array consisting of a large number of re-
users’ individual signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR)
constraints. Moreover, we analyze the asymptotic performance configurable passive elements (e.g., low-cost printed dipoles),
of IRS’s passive beamforming with infinitely large number of where each of the elements is able to induce a certain phase
reflecting elements and compare it to that of the traditional active shift (controlled by an attached smart controller) independent-
beamforming/relaying. Simulation results demonstrate that an ly on the incident signal, thus collaboratively changing the
IRS-aided MIMO system can achieve the same rate performance reflected signal propagation [5]. Although passive reflecting
as a benchmark massive MIMO system without using IRS, but
with significantly reduced active antennas/RF chains. We also surfaces have found a variety of applications in radar systems,
draw useful insights into optimally deploying IRS in future remote sensing, and satellite/deep-space communications, they
wireless systems. were rarely used in mobile wireless communication. This is
Index Terms—Intelligent reflecting surface, joint active and mainly because traditional reflecting surfaces only have fixed
passive beamforming, phase shift optimization. phase shifters once fabricated, which are unable to cater to
the dynamic wireless channels arising from user mobility.
However, recent advances in RF micro electromechanical
I. I NTRODUCTION systems (MEMS) and metamaterial (e.g., metasurface) have
To achieve 1,000-fold network capacity increase and ubiq- made the reconfigurability of reflecting surfaces possible, even
uitous wireless connectivity for at least 100 billion devices by controlling the phase shifters in real time [6]. By smartly
in the forthcoming fifth-generation (5G) networks, a variety adjusting the phase shifts of all passive elements at the IRS,
of wireless technologies have been proposed and thoroughly the reflected signals can add coherently with the signals from
investigated in the last decade, including most prominently the other paths at the desired receiver to boost the received signal
ultra-dense network (UDN), massive multiple-input multiple- power or destructively at non-intended receivers to suppress
output (MIMO), and millimeter wave (mmWave) communi- interference as well as enhancing security/privacy [5].
cation [2]. However, the network energy consumption and It is worth noting that the proposed IRS differs significantly
hardware cost still remain critical issues in practical systems from other related existing technologies such as amplify-and-
[3]. For example, UDNs almost linearly scale up the circuit forward (AF) relay, backscatter communication, and active
and cooling energy consumption with the number of deployed intelligent surface based massive MIMO. First, compared to
base stations (BSs), while costly radio frequency (RF) chains the AF relay that assists in source-destination transmission
by amplifying and regenerating signals, IRS does not use a
Manuscript received October 12, 2018; revised February 23, 2019, May transmitter module but only reflects the received signals as a
15, 2019, and August 6, 2019; accepted August 12, 2019. Date of publication
xxx, 2019; date of current version xxx, 2019. This paper was presented in passive array, which thus incurs no transmit power consump-
part at the IEEE GLOBECOM 2018 [1]. The associate editor coordinating tion.1 Furthermore, active AF relay usually operates in half-
the review of this paper and approving it for publication was K. Kansanen. duplex (HD) mode and thus is less spectrally efficient than the
(Corresponding author: Qingqing Wu.)
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer En- proposed IRS operating in full-duplex (FD) mode. Although
gineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117583 (e-mail:
[email protected]; [email protected]). 1 Although using devices like MEMs as mentioned previously to adjust the
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available phase shifts at the IRS requires some power consumption, it is practically
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. negligible as compared to the much higher transmit power of active commu-
Digital Object Identifier xxx. nication devices.
1536-1276 (c) 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TWC.2019.2936025, IEEE
TABLE I
C OMPARISON OF IRS WITH OTHER RELATED TECHNOLOGIES .
No. of trans-
Operating Hardware Energy xx con-
Technology Duplex mit RF chains Role
mechanism cost sumption
needed
Passive,
IRS Full duplex 0 Low Low Helper
reflect
Passive,
Backscatter Full duplex 0 Very low Very low Source
reflect
Active,
Half/full du-
MIMO relay receive andxxxx N High High Helper
plex
transmit
Active, Half/full du- Source/ Des-
Massive MIMO N Very high Very high
transmit/receive plex tination
AF relay can also work in FD, it inevitably suffers from

the severe self-interference, which needs effective interference
cancellation techniques. Second, different from the traditional
backscatter communication of the radio frequency identifi-
cation (RFID) tag that communicates with the receiver by
reflecting the signal sent from a reader, IRS is utilized mainly

to enhance the existing communication link performance in-
stead of delivering its own information by reflection. As such,

the direct-path signal (from reader to receiver) in backscatter

communication is undesired interference and hence needs
to be canceled/suppressed at the receiver. However, in IRS-

enhanced communication, both the direct-path and reflect-path

signals carry the same useful information and thus can be
coherently added at the receiver to maximize the total received Fig. 1. An IRS-aided multiuser communication system.
power. Third, IRS is also different from the active intelligent
surface based massive MIMO [7] due to their different array
architectures (passive versus active) and operating mechanisms communication systems is still in its infancy, which thus
(reflect versus transmit). A more detailed comparison between motivates this work.
the above technologies and IRS is summarized in Table I, In this paper, we consider an IRS-aided multiuser multiple-
where N denotes the number of active antennas in massive input single-output (MISO) communication system in a single
MIMO or MIMO relay. cell as shown in Fig. 1, where a multi-antenna AP serves
multiple single-antenna users with the help of an IRS. Since
On the other hand, from the implementation perspec- each user in general receives the superposed (desired as well
tive, IRSs possess appealing advantages such as low profile, as interference) signals from both the AP-user (direct) link
lightweight, and conformal geometry, which enable them to and AP-IRS-user (reflected) link, we jointly optimize the
be easily attached/removed to/from the wall or ceiling, thus (active) transmit beamforming at the AP and (passive) reflect
providing high flexibility for their practical deployment [8]. beamforming by the phase shifters at the IRS to minimize the
For example, by installing IRSs on the walls/ceilings which total transmit power at the AP, under a given set of signal-
are in line-of-sight (LoS) with an access point (AP)/BS, the to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraints at the user
signal strength in the vicinity of each IRS can be significantly receivers. For the special case of single-user transmission
improved. In addition, integrating IRSs into the existing net- without any interference, it is intuitive that the AP should
works (such as cellular or WiFi) can be made transparent to beam toward the user directly if the channel of the AP-user
the users without the need of any change in the hardware and link is much stronger than that of the AP-IRS link; while in the
software of their devices. All the above features make IRS opposite case, especially when the AP-user link is severally
a compelling new technology for future wireless networks, blocked by obstacles (e.g., thick walls in indoor applications),
particularly in indoor applications with high density of users the AP ought to adjust its beam toward the IRS to maximally
(such as stadium, shopping mall, exhibition center, airport, leverage its reflected signal to serve the user (i.e., by creating
etc.). To validate the feasibility of IRS, an experimental testbed a virtual LoS link with the user to bypass the obstacle). In
for a two-user setup was developed [9], where the spectral this case, a large number of reflecting elements with adjustable
efficiency is shown to be greatly improved by using the phases at the IRS can focus the signal into a sharp beam toward
IRS. However, the research on IRS design as well as the the user, thus achieving a high beamforming gain similarly
performance analysis and optimization for IRS-aided wireless as by the conventional massive MIMO [10], but only via a
passive array with significantly reduced energy consumption suboptimal zero-forcing (ZF) based precoding at the AP to
and hardware cost. simplify the optimization of passive phase shifters, while in
Moreover, under the general multiuser setup, an IRS-aided this paper we optimize AP transmit precoding jointly with
system will benefit from two main aspects: the beamforming IRS’s phase shifts. As such, the algorithm proposed in [15]
of desired signal as in the single-user case as well as the is not applicable to solving the formulated problems in this
spatial interference suppression among the users. Specifically, paper.
a user near the IRS is expected to be able to tolerate more The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II
interference from the AP as compared to the user farther away introduces the system model and the problem formulation
from the IRS, because the phase shifts of the IRS can be for designing the IRS-aided wireless network. In Sections
tuned such that the interference reflected by the IRS can add III and IV, we propose efficient algorithms to solve the
destructively with that from the AP-user link at the near user formulated problems in the single-user and multiuser cases,
to suppress its overall received interference. This thus provides respectively. Section V presents numerical results to evaluate
more flexibility for designing the transmit beamforming at the performance of the proposed designs. Finally, we conclude
the AP for serving the other users outside the IRS’s covered the paper in Section VI.
region, so as to improve the SINR performance of all users Notations: Scalars are denoted by italic letters, vectors
in the system. Therefore, the transmit beamforming at the and matrices are denoted by bold-face lower-case and upper-
AP needs to be jointly designed with the phase shifts at case letters, respectively. Cx×y denotes the space of x × y
the IRS based on all the AP-IRS, IRS-users, and AP-users complex-valued matrices. For a complex-valued vector x, kxk
channels in order to fully reap the network beamforming denotes its Euclidean norm, arg(x) denotes a vector with each
gain. However, this design problem is difficult to be solved element being the phase of the corresponding element in x,
optimally in general, due to the non-convex SINR constraints and diag(x) denotes a diagonal matrix with each diagonal
as well as the signal unit-modulus constraints imposed by element being the corresponding element in x. The distribution
passive phase shifters. Although beamforming optimization of a circularly symmetric complex Gaussian (CSCG) random
under unit-modulus constraints has been studied in the re- vector with mean vector x and covariance matrix Σ is denoted
search on constant-envelope precoding [11], [12] as well as by CN (x, Σ); and ∼ stands for “distributed as”. For a
hybrid digital/analog processing [13], [14], such designs are square matrix S, tr(S) and S −1 denote its trace and inverse,
mainly restricted to either the transmitter or the receiver side, respectively, while S 0 means that S is positive semi-
which are not applicable to our considered joint active and definite. For any general matrix M , M H , rank(M ), and
passive beamforming optimization at both the AP and IRS. Mi,j denote its conjugate transpose, rank, and (i, j)th element,
To tackle this new problem, we first consider a single-user respectively. I and 0 denote an identity matrix and an all-
setup and apply the semidefinite relaxation (SDR) technique to zero matrix, respectively, with appropriate dimensions. E(·)
obtain a high-quality approximate solution as well as a lower denotes the statistical expectation. Re{·} denotes the real part
bound of the optimal value to evaluate the tightness of approx- of a complex number.
imate solutions. To reduce the computational complexity, we
further propose an efficient algorithm based on the alternating II. S YSTEM M ODEL AND P ROBLEM F ORMULATION
optimization of the phase shifts and transmit beamforming
vector in an iterative manner, where their optimal solutions A. System Model
are derived in closed-form with the other being fixed. Then, As shown in Fig. 1, we consider the IRS-aided downlink
we extend our designs for the single-user case to the general communications in a single-cell network where an IRS is
multiuser setting, and propose two algorithms to obtain sub- deployed to assist in the communications from a multi-antenna
optimal solutions that also offer different tradeoffs between AP to K single-antenna users over a given frequency band.
performance and complexity. Numerical results demonstrate The set of the users is denoted by K. The number of transmit
that the required transmit power at the AP to meet users’ antennas at the AP and that of reflecting units at the IRS
SINR targets can be considerably reduced by deploying the are denoted by M and N , respectively. The IRS is equipped
IRS as compared to the conventional setup without using IRS with a controller that coordinates its switching between two
for both single-user and multiuser setups. In particular, for working modes, i.e., receiving mode for channel estimation
serving a single-user in the vicinity of the IRS, it is shown and reflecting mode for data transmission [8]. Due to the
that the AP’s transmit power decreases with the number of high path loss, it is assumed that the power of the signals
reflecting elements N at the IRS in the order of N 2 when N that are reflected by the IRS two or more times is negligible
is sufficiently large, which is consistent with the performance and thus ignored. To characterize the theoretical performance
scaling law derived analytically. Note that in [15], the authors gain brought by the IRS, we assume that the channel state
also considered the use of passive intelligent mirror (analogous information (CSI) of all channels involved is perfectly known
to IRS) to enhance the sum-rate in a multiuser system. This at the AP. In addition, the quasi-static flat-fading model is
paper differs from [15] in the following two main aspects. adopted for all channels. Since the IRS is a passive reflecting
First, to simplify the system model and algorithm design, device, we consider a time-division duplexing (TDD) protocol
[15] ignored the direct channels from the AP to users, while for uplink and downlink transmissions and assume channel
this paper considers the more general setting with the AP- reciprocity for the CSI acquisition in the downlink based on
user direct channels considered. Second, [15] adopted the the uplink training.
The baseband equivalent channels from the AP to IRS, from to individual SINR constraints at all users. Accordingly, the
the IRS to user k, and from the AP to user k are denoted by problem is formulated as
G ∈ CN ×M , hH r,k ∈ C
1×N
, and hHd,k ∈ C
1×M
, respectively, K
with k = 1, · · · , K. It is worth noting that the reflected chan-
X
(P1) : min kwk k2 (3)
nel from the AP to each user via the IRS is usually referred W ,θ
k=1
to as a dyadic backscatter channel in RFID communications |(hH H 2
r,k ΘG + hd,k )wk |
[16], which behaves different from the AP-user direct channel. s.t. PK ≥ γk , ∀k, (4)
Specifically, each element of the IRS receives the superposed j6=k |(hH H 2 2
r,k ΘG + hd,k )wj | + σk
multi-path signals from the transmitter, and then scatters the 0 ≤ θn ≤ 2π, n = 1, · · · , N, (5)
combined signal with adjustable amplitude and/or phase as if
where γk > 0 is the minimum SINR requirement of user
from a single point source. Let θ = [θ1 , · · · , θN ] and define
k. Although the objective function of (P1) and constraints
a diagonal matrix Θ = diag(β1 ejθ1 , · · · , βN ejθN ) (with
in (5) are convex, it is challenging to solve (P1) due to the
j denoting the imaginary unit) as the reflection-coefficients
non-convex constraints in (4) where the transmit beamforming
matrix of the IRS, where θn ∈ [0, 2π) and βn ∈ [0, 1] denote
and phase shifts are coupled. In general, there is no standard
the phase shift2 and the amplitude reflection coefficient3 of
method for solving such non-convex optimization problems
the nth element of the IRS, respectively. The composite AP-
optimally. Nevertheless, in the next section, we apply the SDR
IRS-user channel is thus modeled as a concatenation of three
and alternating optimization techniques, respectively, to solve
components, namely, the AP-IRS link, IRS reflection with
(P1) approximately for the single-user case, which are then
phase shifts, and IRS-user link.
generalized to the multiuser case. Prior to solving problem
In this paper, we consider linear transmit precoding at
(P1), we present a sufficient condition for its feasibility as
the AP where each user is assigned with one dedicated
follows. Let H = [h1 , · · · , hK ] ∈ CM ×K where hH k =
beamforming vector. Hence, the complex baseband transmitted
PK hHr,k ΘG + h H
d,k , ∀k.
signal at the AP can be expressed as x = k=1 wk sk , where
Proposition 1: Problem (P1) is feasible for any finite user
sk denotes the transmitted data for user k and wk ∈ CM ×1
SINR targets γk ’s if rank(GH Hr + Hd ) = K.
is the corresponding beamforming vector. It is assumed that
Proof: If rank(GH Hr + Hd ) = K, the (right) pseudo
sk , k = 1, · · · , K, are independent random variables with
inverse of H H = HrH ΘG + HdH exists with Θ = I and the
zero mean and unit variance (normalized power). The signal
precoding matrix W at the AP can be set as
received at user k from both the AP-user and AP-IRS-user
1
channels is then expressed as W = H(H H H)−1 diag(γ1 σ12 , · · · , γk σk2 ) 2 . (6)
K
X It is easy to verify that the above solution allows all users to
yk = (hH H
r,k ΘG + hd,k ) wj sj + nk , k = 1, · · · , K, (1) achieve their corresponding γk ’s and thus (P1) is feasible.
j=1 Thanks to the additional AP-IRS-user link, the rank con-
dition in Proposition 1 is practically easier to be satisfied in
where nk ∼ CN (0, σk2 ) denotes the additive white Gaussian an IRS-aided system, as compared to that in the case without
noise (AWGN) at the user k’s receiver. Accordingly, the SINR the IRS, i.e., rank(Hd ) = K. For instance, if the AP-user
of user k is given by direct channels of two users lie in the same direction, then
|(hH H 2 rank(Hd ) = K does not hold. While the rank condition in an
r,k ΘG + hd,k )wk |
SINRk = PK , ∀k. (2) IRS-aided system may still hold since the combined AP-user
j6=k |(hH H 2 2
r,k ΘG + hd,k )wj | + σk channels (including both the AP-user direct and AP-IRS-user
reflected links) of these two users are unlikely to be aligned
too, due to the additional IRS reflected paths.
B. Problem Formulation
Let W = [w1 , · · · , wK ] ∈ CM ×K , Hr = III. S INGLE -U SER S YSTEM
[hr,1 , · · · , hr,K ] ∈ CN ×K , and Hd = [hd,1 , · · · , hd,K ] ∈ In this section, we consider the single-user setup, i.e.,
CM ×K . In this paper, we aim to minimize the total transmit K = 1, to draw important insights into the optimal joint
power at the AP by jointly optimizing the transmit beamform- beamforming design. In this case, no inter-user interference
ing at the AP and reflect beamforming at the IRS, subject is present, and thus (P1) is simplified to (by dropping the user
index)
2 To characterize the fundamental performance limits of IRS, we assume
that the phase shifts can be continuously varied in [0, 2π), while in practice (P2) : min kwk2 (7)
they are usually selected from a finite number of discrete values from 0 to w,θ
2π for the ease of circuit implementation. The design of IRS with discrete s.t. |(hH H 2
r ΘG + hd )w| ≥ γσ ,
2
(8)
phase shifts is addressed in our follow-up work [17].
3 In practice, each element of the IRS is usually designed to maximize the 0 ≤ θn ≤ 2π, n = 1, · · · , N. (9)
signal reflection. Thus, we set βn = 1, ∀n, in the sequel of this paper for
simplicity. Note that this scenario is different from the traditional backscatter Although much simplified, problem (P2) is still a non-convex
communication where the RFID tags usually need to harvest a certain amount optimization problem since the left-hand-side (LHS) of (8)
of energy from the incident signals for powering their circuit operation and
thus a much smaller amplitude reflection coefficient than unity is resulted in is not jointly concave with respect to w and θ. In the next
general. two subsections, we solve (P2) by applying the SDR and
alternating optimization techniques, respectively, which will be solvers such as CVX [20]. Generally, the relaxed problem (19)
extended to the general multiuser system in the next section. may not lead to a rank-one solution, i.e., rank(V ) 6= 1, which
implies that the optimal objective value of problem (19) only
A. SDR serves an upper bound of problem (17). Thus, additional steps
are needed to construct a rank-one solution from the obtained
We first apply SDR to solve problem (P2), which also helps
higher-rank solution to problem (19), while the details can be
obtain a lower bound of the optimal value of (P2) for evalu-
found in [1] and thus are omitted here. It has been shown that
ating the performance gaps from other suboptimal solutions.
such an SDR approach followed by a sufficiently large number
For any given phase shift θ, it is known that the maximum-
of randomizations guarantees at least a π4 -approximation of the
ratio transmission (MRT) is the optimal transmit beamforming
√ (hH ΘG+hH )H optimal objective value of problem (19) [19].
solution to problem (P2) [18], i.e., w∗ = P khrH ΘG+hdH k ,
r d
where P denotes the transmit power of the AP. Substituting
w∗ to problem (P2) yields the following problem B. Alternating Optimization
To achieve lower complexity than the SDR-based solution p-
min P (10) resented in the preceding subsection, we propose an alternative
P,θ
P khH H 2 2 suboptimal algorithm in this subsection based on alternating

s.t. r ΘG + hd k ≥ γσ , (11)
optimization. Specifically, the transmit beamforming direction
0 ≤ θn ≤ 2π, ∀n. (12) and transmit power at the AP are optimized iteratively with
It is not difficult to verify that the optimal transmit power sat- the phase shifts at the IRS in an alternating manner, until the
γσ 2 convergence√is achieved.
isfies P ∗ = khH ΘG+h H k2 . As such, minimizing the transmit
r d
power is equivalent to maximizing the channel power gain of Let w = P w̄ where w̄ denotes the transmit beamforming
the combined channel, i.e., direction and P is the transmit power. For fixed transmit
beamforming direction w̄, (P2) is reduced to a joint transmit
max khH H 2
r ΘG + hd k (13) power and phase shifts optimization problem which can be
θ
formulated as (similar to (10) and (13)),
s.t. 0 ≤ θn ≤ 2π, ∀n. (14)
max |(hH H
r ΘG + hd )w̄|
2
(22)
Let v = [v1 , · · · , vN ]H where vn = ejθn , ∀n. Then, θ
constraints in (14) are equivalent to the unit-modulus con- s.t. 0 ≤ θn ≤ 2π, n = 1, · · · , N. (23)
straints: |vn |2 = 1, ∀n. By applying the change of variables
hH H H N ×M Although being non-convex, the above problem admits a
r ΘG = v Φ where Φ = diag(hr )G ∈ C , we have
khH ΘG + h H 2
k = kv H
Φ + h H 2
k . Thus, problem (13) is closed-form solution by exploiting the special structure of
r d d
equivalent to its objective function. Specifically, we have the following
inequality:
max v H ΦΦH v + v H Φhd + hH H H 2
d Φ v + khd k (15)
v
|(hH H H H
r ΘG + hd )w̄| = |hr ΘGw̄ + hd w̄|
2
s.t. |vn | = 1, ∀n. (16) (a)
≤ |hH H
r ΘGw̄| + |hd w̄|, (24)
Note that problem (15) is a non-convex quadratically con-
strained quadratic program (QCQP), which can be reformulat- where (a) is due to the triangle inequality and the equality
ed as a homogeneous QCQP [19]. Specifically, by introducing holds if and only if arg(hH H
r ΘGw̄) = arg(hd w̄) , ϕ0 . Next,
an auxiliary variable t, problem (15) is equivalently written as we show that there always exists a solution θ that satisfies (a)
with equality as well as the phase shift constraints in (23).
max v̄ H Rv̄ + khH
d k
2
(17)
v̄ Let hH H
r ΘGw = v a where v = [e
jθ1
, · · · , ejθN ]H and a =
s.t. |v̄n |2 = 1, n = 1, · · · , N + 1, (18) H
diag(hr )Gw̄. With (24), problem (22) is equivalent to
where max |v H a|2 (25)
ΦΦH

Φhd v v
R= H H , v̄ = . s.t. |vn | = 1, ∀n = 1, · · · , N, (26)
hd Φ 0 t
H
However, problem (17) is still non-convex in general [19]. arg(v a) = ϕ0 . (27)
Note that v̄ H Rv̄ = tr(Rv̄v̄ H ). Define V = v̄v̄ H , which It is not difficult to show that the optimal solution to
needs to satisfy V 0 and rank(V ) = 1. Since the rank- the above problem is given by v ∗ = ej(ϕ0 −arg(a)) =
one constraint is non-convex, we apply SDR to relax this H
ej(ϕ0 −arg(diag(hr )Gw̄)) . Thus, the nth phase shift at the IRS is
constraint. As a result, problem (17) is reduced to given by
max tr(RV ) + khH
d k
2
(19)
V θn∗ = ϕ0 − arg(hH H
n,r gn w̄)
s.t. Vn,n = 1, n = 1, · · · , N + 1, (20) = ϕ0 − arg(hH H
n,r ) − arg(gn w̄), (28)
V 0. (21)
where hH H H
n,r is the nth element of hr and gn is the nth
H
As problem (19) is a convex semidefinite program (SDP), row vector of G. Note that gn w̄ combines the transmit
it can be optimally solved by existing convex optimization beamforming and the AP-IRS channel, which can be regarded
as the effective channel perceived by the nth reflecting element The received power is then given by
at the IRS. Therefore, (28) suggests that the nth phase shift N
should be tuned such that the phase of the signal that passes X 2
Pu = P |hr,n ||gn | . (30)
through the AP-IRS and IRS-user links is aligned with that of n=1
the signal over the AP-user direct link to achieve coherent
signal combining at the user. Furthermore, it is interesting Since |hr,n | and |gn | are statistically independent
√ and fol-
to note that the obtained phase θn∗ is independent of the low
√ Rayleigh distribution with mean values π%h /2 and
amplitude of hn,r . As a result, the optimal transmit power π%g /2, respectively, we have E(|hr,n ||gn |) = π%h %g /4.
PN
γσ 2 By using the fact that n=1 |hr,n ||gn |/N → π%h %g /4 as
is given by P ∗ = k(hH ΘG+h H )w̄k2 from (P2). Next, we
r d N → ∞, it follows that
optimize the transmit beamforming direction for given θ in
(28). As in Section III-A, the combined AP-user channel is P π 2 %2h %2g
∗ Pu → N 2 . (31)
given by hH H
r ΘG + hd and hence MRT is optimal, i.e., w̄ = 16
H H H
(hr ΘG+hd )
khH H . The above alternating optimization approach This thus completes the proof.
r ΘG+hd k
is practically appealing since both the transmit beamforming The power scaling law with the optimal IRS phase design
and phase shifts are obtained in closed-form expressions, in Proposition 2 is highly promising since it implies that
without invoking the SDP solver. Its convergence is guaranteed by using a large number of reflecting units at the IRS, we
by the following two facts. First, for each subproblem, the can scale down the transmit power of the AP by a factor
optimal solution is obtained which ensures that the objective of 1/N 2 without compromising the user received SNR. The
value of (P2) is non-increasing over iterations. Second, the fundamental reason behind such a “squared gain” is that the
optimal value of (P2) is bounded from below due to the IRS not only achieves the transmit beamforming gain of order
SNR constraint. Thus, the proposed algorithm is guaranteed N in the IRS-user link as in the conventional massive MIMO
to converge. [10], but also captures an inherent aperture gain of order N
by collecting more signal power in the AP-IRS link, which,
C. Power Scaling Law with Infinitely Large Surface however, cannot be achieved by scaling up the number of
transmit antennas in massive MIMO due to the fixed total
Next, we characterize the scaling law of the average re- transmit power. Moreover, for the two benchmark cases with
ceived power at the user with respect to the number of reflect- unit and random phase shifts at the IRS, a received power
ing elements, N , in an IRS-aided system with N → ∞. For gain of order N is also achieved. This shows the practical
simplicity, we assume M = 1 with G ≡ g to obtain essential usefulness of the IRS, even without requiring any channel
insight. By ignoring the AP-user direct channel, the user’s knowledge for optimally setting the phase shifts. Note that the
received power is given by Pu = P |hH |2 = P |hH 2
r Θg| . received noise power in the IRS-aided system remains constant
We consider three different phase shift solutions, i.e., 1) unit as N increases and thus the corresponding user receive SNR
phase shift where Θ = I; 2) random phase shift where θn ’s also has the same squared gain as the received signal power
in Θ are uniformly and randomly distributed in [0, 2π); and with increasing N .
3) optimal phase shift which is obtained by the above two Next, we show the performance scaling law of an FD AF
proposed algorithms (both optimal for M = 1). relay aided system under the same setup as the above IRS-
Proposition 2: Assume hH r ∼ CN (0, %2h I) and g ∼ aided system. The relay is equipped with N transmit and N
2
CN (0, %g I). As N → ∞, it holds that receive antennas and the direct channel from the AP to the
user can be similarly ignored when N is asymptotically large.
 2 2
 N P %h %g , for Θ = I or random Θ, We assume that the relay adopts linear receive and transmit
Pu → 2 2 2 (29) beamforming vectors, denoted by xH r and xt , respectively.
 N 2 P π %h %g , for optimal Θ. In addition, perfect self-interference cancellation (SIC) is
16
assumed at the relay so that the obtained performance serves
Proof: The three cases are discussed as follows: as an upper bound for the practical case with imperfect SIC.
In this case, the user receive SNR can be expressed as
• When Θ = I, we have hH = hH r g. By invoking
the Lindeberg-Lévy central limit theorem [21], we have P Pr kxH 2 H
r gk khr xt k
2
kxt k2 kxr k2
hH 2 2
r g ∼ CN (0, N %h %g ) as N → ∞. As the equivalent γF D = Pr σr2 kxr k2 khH 2 2 2 H 2 , (32)
r xt k +P σ kxt k kxr gk
H
channel h is a random variable, the average user re- kxt k2 kxr k2 + σr2 σ 2
ceived power is given by Pu = P E(|hH |2 ) → N P %2h %2g .
where Pr and σr2 denote the transmit power and the noise
For the case of random phase shifts with θn ∈ [0, 2π),
power at the relay, respectively. It is not difficult to show that
we have hH = hH r ḡ where ḡ = Θg. As Θ is a unitary hr
the optimal solution maximizing γF D satisfies x∗t = kh rk
and
matrix, it follows that ḡ has the same distribution as g, ∗ g ∗ ∗
xr = kgk . Substituting xt and xr into (32), we have
i.e., ḡ ∼ CN (0, %2g I). Thus we attain the same result as
Θ = I. P Pr kgk2 khr k2
• For optimal Θ where the solution is given by (28), we γF D = . (33)
PN Pr σr2 khr k2 + P σ 2 kgk2 + σr2 σ 2
have |hH | = |hH r Θg| = n=1 |h r,n ||gn |, where hr,n
and gn are the n-th elements in hH r and g, respectively.
Then, we have the following proposition.
Proposition 3: Assume hH r ∼ CN (0, %2h I) and g ∼ hHd,k wj = bk,j and vn = e

jθn
, n = 1, · · · , N . By applying
2
CN (0, %g I). As N → ∞, it holds that the change of variables hr,k ΘGwj = v H ak,j where v =
H
[ejθ1 , · · · , ejθN ]H and ak,j = diag(hH r,k )Gwj , problem (P1)

P Pr %2g %2h N
γF D → . (34) is reduced to
Pr σr2 %2h + P σ 2 %2g
2 Find v (38)
khr k2
Proof: Since kgk N → %2g and N → %2h as N → ∞ |v H ak,k + bk,k |2
[10], it follows that s.t. PK ≥ γk , ∀k, (39)
j6=k |v H ak,j + bk,j |2 + σk2
P Pr %2g %2h N 2
γF D → |vn | = 1, n = 1, · · · , N. (40)
Pr σr2 %2h N + P σ 2 %2g N + σr2 σ 2
P Pr %2g %2h N While the above problem appears similar to the relay beam-
≈ . (35) forming optimization problem for multi-antenna relay broad-
Pr σr2 %2h + P σ 2 %2g
cast channel [26], it cannot be directly transformed into an
This thus completes the proof. SOCP optimization problem because the phase rotation of the
Proposition 3 shows that even with perfect SIC, the receive common vector v may not render v H ak,k + bk,k ’s in (39) to
SNR by using the FD AF relay increases only linearly with N be real numbers for all users. Moreover, it has non-convex
when N is asymptotically large. This is fundamentally due to unit-modulus constraints in (40). However, by observing that
the noise effect at the AF relay. To be specific, although the constraints (39) and (40) can be transformed into quadratic
signal power in the FD AF relay system scales in the order of constraints, we apply the SDR technique to approximately
N 2 same as that in the IRS-aided system, its effective noise solve problem (38) efficiently.
power at the receiver also scales linearly with N (see (35)) Specifically, by introducing an auxiliary variable t, (38) can
in contrast to the constant noise power σ 2 in the IRS-aided be equivalently written as
system, thus resulting in a lower SNR gain order with N . Last,
it is worth mentioning that for the HD AF relay system, its Find v (41)
receive SNR scaling order with N can be shown to be identical K
X
to that of the FD AF relay system given in Proposition 3. s.t. v̄ H Rk,k v̄ + |bk,k |2 ≥ γk v̄ H Rk,j v̄
j6=k
K
IV. M ULTIUSER S YSTEM X
+ γk ( |bk,j |2 + σk2 ), ∀k, (42)
In this section, we consider the general multiuser setup.
j6=k
Specifically, we propose two efficient algorithms to solve (P1)
suboptimally by generalizing the two approaches in the single- |vn |2 = 1, n = 1, · · · , N + 1, (43)
user case. where
ak,j aH ak,j bH

k,j k,j v
A. Alternating Optimization Algorithm Rk,j = , v̄ = .
aH
k,j bk,j 0 t
This algorithm leverages the alternating optimization sim-
ilarly as in the single-user case, while the transmit beam- Note that v̄ H Rk,j v̄ = tr(Rk,j v̄v̄ H ). Define V = v̄v̄ H ,
forming at the AP is designed by applying the well-known which needs to satisfy V 0 and rank(V ) = 1. Since the
minimum mean squared error (MMSE) criterion to cope rank-one constraint is non-convex, we relax this constraint and
with the multiuser interference instead of using MRT in the problem (41) is then transformed to
single-user case without interference. For given phase shift (P4) : Find V (44)
θ, the combined channel from the AP to user k is given by K
hH H H
k = hr,k ΘG + hd,k . Thus, problem (P1) is reduced to
X
s.t. tr(Rk,k V ) + |bk,k |2 ≥ γk tr(Rk,j V )
K j6=k
X
(P3) : min kwk k2 (36) XK
W
k=1 + γk ( |bk,j |2 + σk2 ), ∀k, (45)
|hHk wk |
2 j6=k
s.t. PK ≥ γk , ∀k. (37) Vn,n = 1, n = 1, · · · , N + 1, (46)
H 2 + σk2
j6=k |hk wj |
V 0. (47)
Note that (P3) is the conventional power minimization problem
in the multiuser MISO downlink broadcast channel, which It is not difficult to observe that problem (P4) is an SDP
can be efficiently solved by using second-order cone program and hence it can be optimally solved by existing convex
(SOCP) [22], SDP [23], or a fixed-point iteration algorithm optimization solvers such as CVX [20]. While the SDR may
based on the uplink-downlink duality [24], [25]. In addition, not be tight for problem (41), the Gaussian randomization can
it is easy to verify that at the optimal solution to problem (P3), be similarly used to obtain a feasible solution to problem (41)
all the SINR constraints in (37) are met with equalities. based on the higher-rank solution obtained by solving (P4). In
On the other hand, for given transmit beamforming W , addition, it is worth pointing out that the SINR constraints in
problem (P1) is reduced to a feasibility-check problem. Let (45) are not necessarily to be met with equality for a feasible
solution of (P4), due to the common phase shifting matrix (V ) Algorithm 1 Alternating optimization algorithm.
for all users. 1: Initialize the phase shifts θ = θ 1 and set the iteration
In the proposed alternating optimization algorithm, we solve number r = 1.
problem (P1) by solving problems (P3) and (P4) alternately 2: repeat
in an iterative manner, where the solution obtained in each 3: Solve problem (P3) for given θ r , and denote the optimal
iteration is used as the initial point of the next iteration. The solution as W r .
details of the proposed algorithm are summarized in Algorithm 4: Solve problem (P4) or (P4’) for given W r , and denote
1. In particular, the algorithm starts with solving problem (P3) the solution after performing Gaussian randomization
for given θ instead of solving (P4) for given W . This is as θ r+1 .
deliberately designed since (P3) is always feasible for any 5: Update r = r + 1.
arbitrary θ, provided that rank(GH ΘHr + Hd ) = K, while 6: until The fractional decrease of the objective value is
this may not be true for (P4) with arbitrary W . On the below a threshold > 0 or problem (P4)/(P4’) becomes
other hand, as solving (P4) only attains a feasible solution, infeasible.
it remains unknown whether the objective value of (P3) will
monotonically decrease or not over iterations in Algorithm 1.
Intuitively, if the feasible solution obtained by solving (P4) where the slack variable αk can be interpreted as the “SINR
achieves a strictly larger user SINR than the corresponding residual” of user k in phase shift optimization. Note that (P4)
SINR target γk for user k, then the transmit power of user and (P4’) have the same set of feasible V , while (P4’) is more
k and hence the total transmit power in problem (P3) can be efficient than (P4) in terms of the converged solution, as will
properly reduced without violating all the SINR constraints. be verified in Section V-B by simulation.
More rigorously, the convergence of Algorithm 1 is ensured
by the following proposition. B. Two-Stage Algorithm
Proposition 4: The objective value of (P3) is non-
increasing over the iterations by applying Algorithm 1. Inspired by the combined channel gain maximization prob-
Proof: Denote the objective value of (P3) based on a lem (13) in the single-user case, we next propose a two-stage
feasible solution (θ, W ) as f (θ, W ). As shown in step 4 of algorithm with lower complexity compared to the alternating
Algorithm 1, if there exists a feasible solution to problem (P4), optimization algorithm by decoupling the joint beamforming
i.e., (θ r+1 , W r ) exists, it is also feasible to problem (P3). As design problem (P1) into two beamforming subproblems, for
such, (θ r , W r ) and (θ r+1 , W r+1 ) in step 3 are the feasible optimizing the phase shifts and transmit beamforming, respec-
solutions to (P3) in the rth and (r+1)th iterations, respectively. tively. Specifically, the phase shifts at the IRS are optimized
(a) (b) in the first stage by solving a weighted effective channel gain
It then follows that f (θ r+1 , W r+1 ) ≥ f (θ r+1 , W r ) = maximization problem. This aims to align with the phases of
f (θ r , W r ), where (a) holds since for given θ r+1 in step 3 different user channels so as to maximize the beamforming
of Algorithm 1, W r+1 is the optimal solution to problem gain of the IRS, especially for the users near to the IRS. In
(P3); and (b) holds because the objective function of (P3) is the second stage, we solve problem (P3) to obtain the optimal
regardless of θ and only depends on W . MMSE-based transmit beamforming with given phase shifts
To achieve better converged solution, we further transform θ.
problem (P4) into an optimization problem with an explicit Let v = [ejθ1 , · · · , ejθN ]H ∈ CN ×1 and Φk =
objective to obtain a generally more efficient phase shift diag(hH N ×M
r,k )G ∈ C , ∀k. The weighted sum of the com-
solution to reduce the transmit power. The rationale is that bined channel gain of all users is expressed as
for the transmit beamforming optimization problem, i.e., (P3),
K K
all the SINR constraints are active at the optimal solution. As X X
tk khH H 2
r,k ΘG + hd,k k = tk kv H diag(hH H 2
r,k )G + hd,k k
such, optimizing the phase shift to enforce the user achievable
k=1 k=1
SINR to be larger than the SINR target in (P4) directly K
leads to the transmit power reduction in (P3) (e.g., by simply X
tk kv H Φk + hH 2
= d,k k , (52)
scaling down the power of transmit beamforming). To this end, k=1
problem (P4) is transformed into the following problem
K
where we set the weights to be tk = γk1σ2 , k = 1, ..., K,
k
motivated by constraint (11). Based on (52), the phase shifts
X
(P4’) : max αk (48)
V ,{αk }
k=1
can be obtained by solving the following problem
K
X K
s.t. tr(Rk,k V ) + |bk,k |2 ≥ γk
X
tr(Rk,j V ) (P5) : max tk kv H Φk + hH
d,k k
2
(53)
v
j6=k k=1
XK s.t. |vn | = 1, n = 1, · · · , N. (54)
+ γk ( |bk,j |2 + σk2 ) + αk , ∀k, (49)
j6=k
Note that for K = 1, (P5) is equivalent to problem (13) for
the single-user case in Section III-A. However, in the multiuser
Vn,n = 1, n = 1, · · · , N + 1, (50)
case, due to the same set of phase shifts applied for all users
V 0, αk ≥ 0, ∀k, (51) with different channels, the combined channel power gains
of different users cannot be maximized at the same time in d0

general, which thus need to be balanced for optimally solving AP IRS
(P5). Nevertheless, since problem (P5) is a non-convex QCQP, d dv
it can be similarly reformulated as a homogeneous QCQP as
in Section III-A and then solved by applying the SDR and
Gaussian randomization techniques. The details are omitted User
here for brevity. With the phase shifts obtained from (P5),
Fig. 2. Simulation setup of the single-user case (top view).
the MMSE-based transmit bemaforming is then obtained by
solving (P3). Compared to the alternating optimization based
algorithm proposed in Section IV-A, the two-stage algorithm 20
has lower computational complexity as (P5) and (P3) only

18
need to be respectively solved for one time, but may suffer
Transmit power at the AP (dBm)

from certain performance loss, which will be evaluated in the 16
next section.
14
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS 12
In this section, numerical examples are provided to validate Lower bound

10
the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. We consider a SDR
Alternating optimization
three-dimensional (3D) coordinate system where a uniform 8
AP−user MRT
linear array (ULA) at the AP and a uniform rectangular AP−IRS MRT
6 Random phase shift
array (URA) at the IRS are located in x-axis and x-z plane, Without IRS
respectively. The antenna spacing is half wavelength and the 4
20 25 30 35 40 45 50
reference (center) antennas at the AP and IRS are respectively AP−user horizontal distance, d (m)
located at (0, 0, 0) and (0, d0 , 0), where d0 > 0 is the distance
between them. For the IRS, we set N = Nx Nz where Nx Fig. 3. AP transmit power versus AP-user horizontal distance
and Nz denote the numbers of reflecting elements along the
x-axis and z-axis, respectively. For the purpose of exposition,
we fix Nx = 5 and increase Nz linearly with N . The distance- vectors used for the Gaussian randomization is set to be 1000
dependent path loss model is given by and the stopping threshold for the alternating optimization
−α algorithms is set as = 10−4 . Other system parameters are set
d
L(d) = C0 , (55) as follows: C0 = −30 dB, σk2 = −80 dBm, ∀k, and d0 = 51
D0 m (if not specified otherwise).
where C0 is the path loss at the reference distance D0 =
1 meter (m), d denotes the individual link distance, and α A. Single-User System
denotes the path loss exponent. To account for small-scale
First, we consider a single-user system with the user SNR
fading, we assume the Rician fading channel model for all
target γ = 10 dB and M = 4. As shown in Fig. 2, the
channels involved. Thus, the AP-IRS channel G is given by
s user lies on a horizontal line that is in parallel to the one
that connects the reference antennas of AP and IRS, with the
r
βAI LoS 1
G= G + GNLoS , (56) vertical distance between these two lines being dv = 2 m.
1 + βAI 1 + βAI
Denote the horizontal distance between the AP and user by
where βAI is the Rician factor, and GLoS and GNLoS represent d m. Accordingly, thep AP-user and IRS-userp link distances
the deterministic LoS (specular) and Rayleigh fading compo- are given by d1 = d2 + d2v and d2 = (d0 − d)2 + d2v ,
nents, respectively. In particular, the above model is reduced to respectively. By varying the value of d, we can study the
the LoS channel when βAI → ∞ or Rayleigh fading channel transmit power required for serving the user located between
when βAI = 0. The elements in G are then multiplied by the the AP and IRS, under the given SNR target. The path loss
square root of the distance-dependent path loss in (55) with the exponents and Rician factors are set as αAI = 2, αIu = 2.8,
path loss exponent denoted by αAI . The AP-user and IRS-user βIu = 0, and βAI = ∞, respectively, where G is of rank one,
channels are also generated by following the similar procedure. i.e., an LoS channel between the AP and IRS. We compare
The path loss exponents of the AP-user and IRS-user links are the following schemes: 1) Lower bound: the minimum transmit
denoted by αAu and αIu , respectively, and the Rician factors power based on the optimal solution of the SDP problem (19);
of the two links are denoted by βAu and βIu , respectively. 2) SDR: the solution obtained by applying SDR and Gaussian
Due to the relatively large distance and random scattering of randomization techniques in Section III-A; 3) Alternating
the AP-user channel, we set αAu = 3.5 and βAu = 0 while optimization: the solution proposed in Section III-B; 4) AP-
their counterparts for AP-IRS and IRS-user channels will be user MRT: we set w̄ = hd /khd k to achieve MRT based on the
specified later to study their effects on the system performance. AP-user direct channel; 5) AP-IRS MRT: we set w̄ = g/kgk
Without loss of generality, we assume that all users have the to achieve MRT based on the AP-IRS rank-one channel, with
same SINR target, i.e., γk = γ, ∀k. The number of random g H denoting any row in G; 6) Random phase shift: we set the
10
elements in θ randomly in [0, 2π] and then perform MRT at 20

the AP based on the combined channel;p 7) Benchmark scheme
without the IRS by setting w = γσ 2 hd /khd k2 . Note that 15
for scheme 3), the transmit beamforming is initialized by using

Lower bound
SDR
the AP-user MRT, and for schemes 4) and 5) with given w̄, 10 Alternating optimization
the transmit power and phase shifts are optimized by using AP−user MRT
the results in Section III-B. 5
AP−IRS MRT
Random phase shift
1) AP Transmit Power versus AP-User Distance: In Fig. 3, Without IRS
we compare the transmit power required by all schemes versus
0
the horizontal distance between the AP and user, d. First, it
is observed that the proposed two schemes both achieve near-
−5
optimal transmit power as compared to the transmit power
lower bound, and also significantly outperform other bench-
−10
mark schemes. Second, for the scheme without the IRS, one 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Number of reflecting elements, N
can observe that the user farther away from the AP requires
higher transmit power at the AP due to the larger signal (a) d = 50 m
attenuation. However, this problem is alleviated by deploying
an IRS, which implies that a larger AP-user distance does 17
not necessarily lead to a higher transmit power in IRS-aided 16

wireless networks. This is because the user farther away from Lower bound
15 SDR

the AP may be closer to the IRS and thus it is able to receive Alternating optimization
stronger reflected signal from the IRS. As a result, the user 14 AP−user MRT
AP−IRS MRT
near either the AP (e.g., d = 23 m) or IRS (e.g., d = 47 m) 13 Random phase shift
requires lower transmit power than a user far away from both Without IRS
of them (e.g., d = 40 m). This phenomenon also suggests that 12
the signal coverage can be effectively extended by deploying 11

only a passive IRS rather than installing an additional AP or
10
active relay. For example, for the same transmit power about
13 dBm, the coverage of the network without the IRS is about 9
33 m whereas this value is improved to be beyond 50 m by 8

applying the proposed joint beamforming designs with an IRS. 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Number of reflecting elements, N
On the other hand, it is observed from Fig. 3 that the
AP-user MRT scheme performs close to optimal when the (b) d = 41 m
user is nearer to the AP, while it incurs considerably higher
6.5
transmit power when the user is nearer to the IRS. This is
expected since in the former case, the user received signal 6
is dominated by the AP-user direct link whereas the IRS- 5.5

user link is dominant in the latter case. Moreover, it can be Lower bound
5
observed that the AP-IRS MRT scheme behaves oppositely SDR
4.5 Alternating optimization
as the user moves away from the AP toward IRS. Finally,
AP−user MRT
Fig. 3 also shows that if the transmit beamforming is not 4
AP−IRS MRT
designed properly, the performance achieved by using the IRS 3.5
Random phase shift
Without IRS
may be even worse than that of the case without the IRS, e.g., 3
with the AP-IRS MRT scheme for d ≤ 35 m. This further
2.5
demonstrates that the proposed joint beamforming designs can
dynamically adjust the AP’s beamforming to strike an optimal 2
balance between the signal power transmitted directly to the 1.5

20 30 40 50 60 70 80
user and that to the IRS, to achieve the maximum received Number of reflecting elements, N
power at the user.
(c) d = 15 m
2) AP Transmit Power versus Number of Reflecting Ele-
ments: In Fig. 4, we compare the AP’s transmit power of all Fig. 4. AP transmit power versus the number of reflecting elements at the
the above schemes versus the number of reflecting elements IRS, N .
at the IRS when d = 50, 41, and 15 m, respectively. From
Fig. 4 (a), it is observed that for the case of d = 50 m (i.e.,
the user is very close to the IRS), the AP-IRS MRT scheme power required by the proposed schemes scales down with the
achieves near-optimal transmit power since the signal reflected number of reflecting elements N approximately in the order
by the IRS is much stronger than that directly from the AP at of N 2 in this case, which is in accordance with Proposition 2
the user. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the transmit (even when the AP-IRS channel is LoS rather than Rayleigh
11
9
U8
1 bps/Hz increase by doubling N U5 U3
8
AP
U6
7
IRS
Achievable rate (bps/Hz)
d0
6 U4 d2
d1
5 2 bps/Hz increase by doubling N U7 U1 U2
3 IRS
FD AF relay Fig. 6. Simulation setup of the multiuser case (top view).
2 HD AF relay
1
Under the above setup, we plot the achievable rate in
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
bits/second/Hertz (bps/Hz) versus N in Fig. 5, where the HD
Number of elements/antennas at the IRS/AF relay, N AF relay is also considered as a benchmark. It is observed
that when N is small, the IRS-aided system is able to achieve
Fig. 5. Comparison between the IRS and the FD/HD AF relay. the same rate as the FD/HD AF relay-aided system by using
more reflecting elements. However, since the IRS’s elements
are passive, no transmit RF chains are needed for them
fading). For example, for the same user SNR, a transmit power and thus the cost is much lower as compared with that of
of 2 dBm is required at the AP when N = 30 while this active antennas for the AF relay requiring transmit RF chains.
value is reduced to −4 dBm when N = 60, which suggests Furthermore, one can observe that by doubling N from 400
an around 6 dB gain by doubling the number of reflecting to 800, the achievable rate of using IRS increases about 2
elements. In contrast, the transmit power required by using bps/Hz whereas that of using the FD AF relay only increases
the random phase shift decreases with increasing N in a much about 1 bps/Hz. This is due to their different SNR gains (N 2
slower rate, because without reflect beamforming the average versus N ) with increasing N as revealed in Propositions 2
signal power of the reflected signal is comparable to that of the and 3. As a result, it is expected that the IRS-aided system
signal from the AP-user direct link in this case. Finally, it is will eventually outperform the FD/HD AF relay-aided system
observed that the above gains diminish as the user moves away when N is sufficiently large, as shown in Fig. 5.
from the IRS. For example, for the case of d = 15 m shown in
Fig. 4 (c) where the AP-user direct link signal is much stronger
than that of the IRS-user link, the required transmit power is B. Multiuser System
insensitive to the number of reflecting elements. For the case Next, we consider a multiuser system with eight users,
of d = 41 m shown in Fig. 4 (b) when the user is neither close denoted by Uk , k = 1, · · · , 8, and their locations are shown
to the AP nor close to the IRS, it is observed that the transmit in Fig. 6. Specifically, Uk ’s, k = 2, 4, 6, 8, lie evenly on a half
power gain of the proposed schemes is generally lower than circle centered at the reference antenna of the IRS with radius
N 2 . This is because in this case the signal power received d2 = 3 m, which are usually considered as “cell-edge” users,
at the IRS is compromised as the AP transmit beamforming as compared to Uk ’s, k = 1, 3, 5, 7, which lie evenly on a
is steered to strike a balance between the AP-IRS link and circle centered at the reference antenna of the AP with radius
the AP-user direct link. In practice, the number of reflecting d1 = 20 m. Since the IRS can be practically deployed in LoS
elements can be properly selected depending on the IRS’s with the AP and “cell-edge” users, we set αAI = αIu = 2.8,
location as well as the target user SNR/AP coverage range. βAI = βIu = 3 dB, respectively. We compare our proposed
3) Comparison with AF Relay: Next, we compare the two algorithms (named as Alternating optimization w/ IRS and
achievable rates of the IRS versus the FD AF relay based Two-stage algorithm w/ IRS, respectively) in Section IV with
on the results derived in Section III. We consider the setup in the two conventional designs in the case without the IRS, i.e.,
Fig. 2 with d0 = d = 100 m, dv = 1 m, σr2 = −80 dBm, MMSE and zero-forcing (ZF) based beamforming [23], [27].
αAI = 3.2, αIu = 2, βAI = 0, βIu = ∞, and M = 1. To Specifically, the transmit power of the MMSE-based scheme
focus on the comparison with large N , the direct link from without the IRS is obtained by solving (P3) with Θ = 0,
the AP to the user is ignored, and perfect SIC is assumed for while that of the ZF-based scheme without the IRS is given by
the FD AF relay. As such, the SNRs and the corresponding tr(P (HdH Hd )−1 ) where P = diag(σ12 γ1 , · · · , σK 2
γK ). The
achievable rates for the IRS-aided and the FD AF relay-aided transmit power required by using the random phase shift at
systems can be obtained based on (30) and (32), respectively. the IRS and MMSE beamforming at the AP is also plotted as
For a fair comparison, we assume that both systems have the a benchmark. Before comparing their performances, we first
same total transmit power budget P = 5 mW (for single link show the convergence behaviour of the proposed Algorithm
only). Since the IRS is passive, all the transmit power is used 1 in Fig. 7 by setting M = 4 and considering that only Uk ,
at the AP, whereas since the AF relay is active like the AP, k = 1, 2, 3, 4, are active (need to be served) with γ = 20 dB.
an optimal power allocation between them is required which The phase shifts are initialized using the two-stage algorithm.
can be obtained by exhaustive search. It is observed that the transmit power required by the proposed
12
35
user direct channel (i.e., hH
d,k ) for user k, which is defined as
Solving P4’ [18], [27]
Solving P4
34.5
!
|hH d,k wk |
ρk , E , ∀k. (57)
34 khHd,k kkwk k
33.5 In particular, ρk = 1 when the AP steers wk to align with hH d,k

perfectly, i.e., MRT transmission, whereas in general ρk < 1
33 when the AP sets wk orthogonal to hH d,j , j 6= k, i.e., ZF
transmission. Generally, a higher ρk implies that the transmit
32.5
beamforming direction is closer to that of the AP-user direct
channel. Figs. 9 (a) and (b) show both the desired signal power
32
and interference power of the two users, respectively. For each
31.5
user k, we plot the following four power terms: 1) Combined
0 5 10 15
Number of iterations
20 25 30
desired signal power, i.e., |(hH H 2
r,k ΘG + hd,k )wk | ; 2) Desired
H 2
signal power from AP-user link, i.e., |hd,k wk | ; 3) Combined
Fig. 7. Convergence behaviour of the proposed alternating optimization interference power, i.e., |hH H 2
r,k ΘG + hd,k )wj | , j 6= k; 4)
algorithm. Interference power from AP-user link, i.e., |hH 2
d,k wj | , j 6= k.
For the purpose of exposition, both the desired signal and
interference powers are normalized by the noise power. It
40
Alternating optimization w/ IRS
is observed from Fig. 9 (a) that for user 1 (far from IRS),
Two−stage algorithm w/ IRS the desired signal and interference powers received from the
35 MMSE beamforming w/o IRS
combined channel are almost the same as those from the AP-
ZF beamforming w/o IRS

30 Random phase shift user direct link. This is expected since user 1 is far away from
the IRS and hence the signal (both desired and interference)
25 from the IRS is negligible. However, the case of user 2 (near
IRS) is quite different from that of user 1. As shown in Fig.
20
9 (b), the desired signal power from the combined channel
15 is remarkably higher than that from the AP-user direct link,
due to the reflect beamforming gain by the IRS. Furthermore,
10 the IRS also helps align the interference from the AP-IRS-
user reflect link oppositely with that from the AP-user direct
5
link to suppress the interference at user 2. This is shown by
−4 0 4 8 12 16 20 24
User SINR target, γ (dB) observing that the interference power from the AP-user direct
link monotonically increases with the SINR target whereas that
Fig. 8. AP’s transmit power versus the SINR target for the two-user case. from the combined channel decreases as SINR target increases.
In Figs. 9 (c) and (d), we plot ρ1 and ρ2 , respectively,
for both the cases with and without the IRS. For user 1, it
algorithm decreases quickly with the number of iterations and is observed in Fig. 9 (c) that for low SINR (noise-limited)
solving (P4’) instead of (P4) in Algorithm 1 achieves lower regime, the AP in the case with the IRS steers its beam
converged power. Thus, in the following simulations, we use direction toward the AP-user direct channel as in the case
(P4’) instead of (P4) in Algorithm 1. without the IRS (i.e., MRT beamforming), while for high
1) AP Transmit Power versus User SINR Target: In Fig. 8, SINR (interference-limited) regime where the beam direction
we show the transmit power at the AP versus the SINR target in the latter case is adjusted to null out the interference to
by considering that only two users, namely Uk ’s, k = 1, 2, are user 2 (i.e, ZF beamforming), the former case still keeps
active, which are far from and near the IRS, respectively. It is a high correlation between user 1’s beam direction and the
observed that by adding the IRS, the transmit power required corresponding AP-user direct channel. This is expected since
by applying the proposed algorithms is significantly reduced, the IRS is not able to enhance the desired signal for user 1 (see
as compared to the case without the IRS. In addition, one Fig. 9 (a)), thus keeping a high ρ1 helps reduce the transmit
can observe that the transmit power of the proposed two-stage power for serving user 1. However, user 2 inevitably suffers
algorithm asymptotically approaches that of the alternating more interference from user 1 in the AP-user direct link (see
optimization algorithm as γ increases. Fig. 9 (b)), which, nevertheless, is significantly suppressed at
Next, we show how the AP and IRS serve the two users user 2, thanks to the IRS-assisted interference cancellation.
by collaboratively steering the transmit beamforming and In contrast, from Fig. 9 (d) it is observed that the user 2’s
adjusting the phase shifts based on the proposed Algorithm beam direction in the case with the IRS is steered toward
1 (i.e., Alternating optimization w/ IRS). To visualize the the AP-user combined channel rather than the AP-user direct
transmit beamforming direction at the AP, we use the effective channel at low SINR regime, and then converges to the same
angle between the transmit beamforming (i.e., wk ) and the AP- ZF beamforming as in the case without the IRS at high SINR
13
Combined desired signal Combined desired signal

20
20 Desired signal from AP−user link Desired signal from AP−user link
Combined interference Combined interference
15 Interference from AP−user link Interference from AP−user link
Normalized signal power (dB)
Normalized signal power (dB)

10
10
0
5
0 −10
−5
−20
−10
−15 −30
−4 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 −4 0 4 8 12 16 20 24
User SINR target, γ (dB) User SINR target, γ (dB)
(a) Signal and interference powers at user 1 (far from the IRS). (b) Signal and interference powers at user 2 (near the IRS).
1 1
Alternating optimization w/ IRS Alternating optimization w/ IRS
MMSE beamforming w/o IRS MMSE beamforming w/o IRS
0.95 MRT beamforming 0.95 MRT beamforming
0.9 0.9
ρ2
ρ1
0.85 0.85
ZF beamforming ZF beamforming
0.8 0.8
−4 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 −4 0 4 8 12 16 20 24
User SINR target, γ (dB) User SINR target, γ (dB)
(c) ρ1 (d) ρ2
Fig. 9. Illustration for the collaborative working mechanism of the AP and IRS.
regime. This is expected since the IRS is not able to help 38

cancel the AP-user direct interference at user 1, thus nulling
36
out the interference caused by user 2 is the most effective
way for meeting the high SINR target. From the above, it 34
Alternating optimization w/ IRS
Transmit power at the AP(dBm)
is concluded that the transmit beamforming directions for 32 Two−stage algorithm w/ IRS
MMSE beamforming w/o IRS
the users with the IRS are drastically different from those 30 ZF beamforming w/o IRS
in the case without the IRS, depending on their different
28
distances with the IRS. The above results further demonstrate
the necessity of jointly optimizing the transmit beamforming 26
and phase shifts in IRS-aided multiuser systems. 24
22
2) AP Transmit Power versus Rician Factor of G: In
Fig. 10, we plot the AP’s transmit power required by the 20
proposed algorithms with IRS against the benchmark schemes 18

−30 −20 −10 0 10 20 30
without IRS versus the Rician factor of the AP-IRS channel Rician factor, β AI (dB)
by assuming all eight users are active and setting M = 8,
N = 40, and γ = 10 dB. One can observe that when Fig. 10. AP’s transmit power versus the Rician factor of the AP-IRS channel.
the average power of the LoS component is comparable to
that of the fading component (e.g., βAI ≥ −10 dB), the
transmit power of both proposed algorithms increases with
the increasing Rician factor, for meeting the same set of SINR signals generally dominate the signals from AP-user direct
targets. This is because for users near the IRS, the reflected links. As such, a higher Rician factor of G results in higher
14
correlation among the combined channels of these users, which

is detrimental to the spatial multiplexing gain due to the more M=20, N=80
M=20, N=120
severe multiuser interference. The implication of this result 7 M=20
Achievable max-min rate (bps/Hz)

is that (somehow surprisingly) it is practically favorable to M=40
M=50
deploy the IRS in a relatively rich scattering environment to 6 M=60
avoid strong LoS (low-rank G) with the AP, so as to serve

multiple users by the IRS which requires sufficient spatial 5
degrees of freedom from the AP to the IRS.

3) Comparison with Massive MIMO: To compare with the 4
existing TDD-based massive MIMO system (without the use

3
of IRS), we consider there are sixteen users with eight users
randomly distributed within 60 m from the AP and the other
2
eight users randomly distributed within 6 m from the IRS. Oth-
er channel parameters are set to be the same as those for Fig. 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
8. To facilitate the channel estimation, we assume that the IRS AP transmit power (dBm)
is equipped with receive RF chains. The transmission protocol
for the IRS-aided wireless system is described as follows: 1) Fig. 11. Achievable max-min rate versus transmit power at AP.
all the users send orthogonal pilot signals concurrently as in
the TDD-based massive MIMO system; 2) the AP and the IRS
estimate the AP-user and IRS-user channels, respectively4 ; 3) 7.5
the AP starts to transmit data to the users and in the meanwhile

7
sends its estimated AP-user channels to the IRS controller via
a separate control link (see Fig. 1), so that the IRS can jointly Achievable max-min rate (bps/Hz) 6.5
optimize the AP transmit beamforming vectors and its phase
6
shifts by using the proposed algorithms in this paper; 4) the
IRS controller sends optimized transmit beamforming vectors 5.5
M=20, N=80
M=20, N=120
to the AP and sets its phase shifts accordingly; and 5) the AP M=20
M=40
and IRS start to transmit data to the users collaboratively. As 5
M=50
such, different from the massive MIMO system, the IRS-aided M=60
4.5
system generally incurs additional delay in steps 3) and 4) due
to information exchange and algorithm computation. 4
We denote the channel coherence time as Tc and the total
3.5
delay caused by 3) and 4) as τ , where we assume that τ < Tc . 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
The delay ratio is thus given by ρ = Tτc . Since steps 1) and 2) Delay ratio,
are required in both the IRS-aided system and massive MIMO

system, the time overhead for channel training is omitted for Fig. 12. Impact of IRS delay on achievable max-min rate.
both schemes for a fair comparison. Note that users are served
by the AP only over τ with the achievable SINR of user k,
k ∈ K, denoted by SINR1k , while when they are served by In Fig. 11, we show the achievable max-min rate versus the
both the AP and IRS during the remaining time of Tc − τ , transmit power at the AP for the ideal case with negligible
the SINR of user k is denoted by SINR2k . Accordingly, the delay (i.e., ρ = 0) in the IRS-aided system, which provides
achievable rates of user k in the above two phases can be a throughput upper bound for practical implementation. From
expressed as Rk1 = log2 (1 + SINR1k ) and Rk2 = log2 (1 + Fig. 11, it is observed that a hybrid deployment of an AP with
SINR2k ) in bps/Hz, respectively. The average achievable rate M = 20 active antennas and an IRS with N = 80 passive
of user k over Tc is thus given by rk = Tτc Rk1 + (1 − Tτc )Rk2 = reflecting elements achieves nearly the same performance as
ρRk1 + (1 − ρ)Rk2 . Given the transmit power constraint at the deploying only an AP with M = 50 but without using the IRS,
AP, we aim to maximize the minimum achievable rate of rk which implies that the IRS is indeed effective in reducing the
among all the users, which is a dual problem of (P1) and thus number of active antennas required in conventional massive
can be solved by using the proposed alternating optimization MIMO. To take into account the practical delay due to IRS-
algorithm together with an efficient bisection search over the AP coordination, we show in Fig. 12 the achievable max-min
AP transmit power [22]. For the case of massive MIMO, we rate versus the delay ratio ρ by fixing the transmit power at the
adopt the optimal MMSE-based transmit beamforming at the AP as 15 dBm. It is observed that as the delay ratio increases,
AP. the achievable rate of the IRS-aided system decreases since
users are served by a relatively small MIMO system (with
4 Since in practice the AP and IRS are deployed at fixed locations, we M = 20) for more time before the IRS is activated for signal
assume for simplicity that the channel G between them is quasi-static and reflection. However, it is also observed that even with a large
changes much slower as compared to the AP-user and IRS-user channels,
and thus is constant and known for the considered communication period of delay of 0.18Tc , the IRS-aided system with M = 20 and
interest. N = 80 can still achieve better performance than the AP-only
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16
Qingqing Wu (S’13-M’16) received the B.Eng. and

the Ph.D. degrees in Electronic Engineering from
South China University of Technology and Shanghai
Jiao Tong University (SJTU) in 2012 and 2016,
respectively. He is currently a Research Fellow in the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
at National University of Singapore. His current
research interests include intelligent reflecting sur-
face (IRS), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) commu-
nications, and green communications. He was the
recipient of the Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis Funding
in SJTU in 2016 and the Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis Award of China Institute
of Communications in 2017. He received the IEEE WCSP Best Paper
Award in 2015. He was honoured as the Exemplary Reviewer of IEEE
Communications Letters in 2016 and 2017, the Exemplary Reviewer of IEEE
Wireless Communications Letters in 2018, the Exemplary Reviewer of IEEE
Transactions on Communications in 2017 and 2018, and the Exemplary
Reviewer of IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications in 2017 and
2018. He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Communications Letters
and IEEE Open Journal of Communications Society, and the Workshop Co-
chair for IEEE ICC 2019 Workshop on ”Integrating UAVs into 5G”.
Rui Zhang (S’00-M’07-SM’15-F’17) received the

B.Eng. (first-class Hons.) and M.Eng. degrees from
the National University of Singapore, Singapore,
and the Ph.D. degree from the Stanford University,
Stanford, CA, USA, all in electrical engineering.
From 2007 to 2010, he worked as a Research
Scientist with the Institute for Infocomm Research,
ASTAR, Singapore. Since 2010, he has joined the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
National University of Singapore, where he is now
a Dean’s Chair Associate Professor in the Faculty
of Engineering. He has authored over 300 papers. He has been listed as
a Highly Cited Researcher (also known as the World’s Most Influential
Scientific Minds), by Thomson Reuters (Clarivate Analytics) since 2015. His
research interests include UAV/satellite communication, wireless information
and power transfer, multiuser MIMO, smart and reconfigurable environment,
and optimization methods.
He was the recipient of the 6th IEEE Communications Society Asia-Pacific
Region Best Young Researcher Award in 2011, and the Young Researcher
Award of National University of Singapore in 2015. He was the co-recipient
of the IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications in 2015,
the IEEE Communications Society Asia-Pacific Region Best Paper Award in
2016, the IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award in 2016, the
IEEE Communications Society Heinrich Hertz Prize Paper Award in 2017,
the IEEE Signal Processing Society Donald G. Fink Overview Paper Award
in 2017, and the IEEE Technical Committee on Green Communications &
Computing (TCGCC) Best Journal Paper Award in 2017. His co-authored
paper received the IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper
Award in 2017. He served for over 30 international conferences as the
TPC co-chair or an organizing committee member, and as the guest editor
for 3 special issues in the IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN
SIGNAL PROCESSING and the IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS
IN COMMUNICATIONS. He was an elected member of the IEEE Signal
Processing Society SPCOM Technical Committee from 2012 to 2017 and
SAM Technical Committee from 2013 to 2015, and served as the Vice Chair
of the IEEE Communications Society Asia-Pacific Board Technical Affairs
Committee from 2014 to 2015. He served as an Editor for the IEEE TRANS-
ACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS from 2012 to 2016, the
IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS: Green
Communications and Networking Series from 2015 to 2016, and the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING from 2013 to 2017. He is
now an Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS
and the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GREEN COMMUNICATIONS AND
NETWORKING. He serves as a member of the Steering Committee of the
IEEE Wireless Communications Letters. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of
IEEE Signal Processing Society and IEEE Communications Society.

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been

Intelligent Reflecting Surface Enhanced Wireless

AF relay can also work in FD, it inevitably suffers from 

the direct-path signal (from reader to receiver) in backscatter

P khH H 2 2 suboptimal algorithm in this subsection based on alternating

Proposition 3: Assume hH r ∼ CN (0, %2h I) and g ∼ hHd,k wj = bk,j and vn = e

[ejθ1 , · · · , ejθN ]H and ak,j = diag(hH r,k )Gwj , problem (P1)

of different users cannot be maximized at the same time in d0

has lower computational complexity as (P5) and (P3) only

Transmit power at the AP (dBm)

In this section, numerical examples are provided to validate Lower bound

elements in θ randomly in [0, 2π] and then perform MRT at 20

Transmit power at the AP (dBm)

not necessarily lead to a higher transmit power in IRS-aided 16

Transmit power at the AP (dBm)

the signal coverage can be effectively extended by deploying 11

33 m whereas this value is improved to be beyond 50 m by 8

is dominated by the AP-user direct link whereas the IRS- 5.5

balance between the signal power transmitted directly to the 1.5

33.5 In particular, ρk = 1 when the AP steers wk to align with hH d,k

ZF beamforming w/o IRS

Combined desired signal Combined desired signal

Normalized signal power (dB)

0.95 MRT beamforming 0.95 MRT beamforming

regime. This is expected since the IRS is not able to help 38

and phase shifts in IRS-aided multiuser systems. 24

proposed algorithms with IRS against the benchmark schemes 18

correlation among the combined channels of these users, which

Achievable max-min rate (bps/Hz)

avoid strong LoS (low-rank G) with the AP, so as to serve

degrees of freedom from the AP to the IRS.

existing TDD-based massive MIMO system (without the use

the AP starts to transmit data to the users and in the meanwhile

are required in both the IRS-aided system and massive MIMO

Qingqing Wu (S’13-M’16) received the B.Eng. and

Rui Zhang (S’00-M’07-SM’15-F’17) received the

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AF relay can also work in FD, it inevitably suffers from