Near-Field MMSE Channel Estimation for THz RIS-Aided Communications With Electromagnetic Interference

This letter investigates the channel estimation problem in teraHertz (THz) wireless communications where a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is employed to assist wireless transmission between different devices. Unlike existing studies, we consider a novel scenario where specific devices are all located in the radiative near-field (NF) region of the RIS. Meanwhile, we also account for the impact on channel estimation of the random electromagnetic interference occurring at the RIS location. An linear minimum mean-square error estimator is employed, where the estimation error is fully determined by the RIS configuration. Optimizing the RIS involves solving a non-convex problem, which is addressed using an alternating optimization approach based on the diagonally scaled gradient descent algorithm. Numerical results in the THz band highlight the importance of leveraging NF channel statistics over far-field approximations and demonstrate that the proposed estimator achieves substantial improvements in normalized mean-square error compared to existing methods.