A Survey on Intelligent Reconfigurable/Reflecting Surface in 6G Communication

Intelligent Reflecting/Re-configurable surfaces (IRSs) aligns and regulates the wireless network environment and efficiently controls the wavefront (Phase, Amplitude, Frequency, Polarization). Given the recent emphasis on establishing a secure, cost-efficient 6G network, IRS can potentially be a key factor in establishing 6G wireless network from urban to remote areas. It has emerged to be a highly promising technology. The survey paper classifies the recent research investigations on IRS into various different yet important categories. For IRS aided vehicular communications, the paper presents a detailed analysis on the development, impact and effects on V2X, V2V and UAV communications. The paper also includes a detailed analysis on Machine Learning models for IRS based wireless communication towards 6G, which highlights the complex problems in wireless communication such as beamforming. The paper covers major categories related to deployment, future works and challenges etc.