高时效短包通信中的智能反射面部署：分布式还是集中式部署？

张洋译; 管新荣; 杨炜伟; 曹阔; 王萌; 蔡跃明

doi:10.11999/JEIT250720

高时效短包通信中的智能反射面部署：分布式还是集中式部署？

doi: 10.11999/JEIT250720 cstr: 32379.14.JEIT250720

张洋译^{1, 2},
管新荣^2, ,,
杨炜伟²,
曹阔³,
王萌²,
蔡跃明²

1.
国防科技大学第六十三研究所南京 210007
2.
陆军工程大学通信工程学院南京 210007
3.
国防科技大学电子科学学院长沙 410073

基金项目: 国家自然科学基金(62171461, 62201584, 62171464)

详细信息

作者简介:
张洋译：男，博士，助理研究员，研究方向为智能超表面和短包通信

管新荣：男，博士，副教授，研究方向为智能超表面和短包通信

杨炜伟：男，博士，教授，研究方向为移动通信、隐蔽通信、协同通信等

曹阔：男，博士，讲师，研究方向为移动通信、协同通信等

王萌：男，硕士，副教授，研究方向为无线资源管理

蔡跃明：男，博士，教授，研究方向为移动通信、协同通信等

通讯作者:
管新荣　guanxr@aliyun.com

中图分类号: TN926
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- 被引次数: 0
出版历程
- 收稿日期: 2025-07-31
- 修回日期: 2025-11-05
- 录用日期: 2025-11-05
- 网络出版日期: 2025-11-13

IRS Deployment for Highly Time Sensitive Short Packet Communications: Distributed or Centralized Deployment?

1.
National University of Defense Technology, Nanjing 210007, China
2.
Army Engineering University of PLA, Nanjing 210007, China
3.
National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China

Funds: The National Natural Science Foundation of China (62171461, 62201584, 62171464)

摘要

摘要: 智能反射面(IRS)的部署能够提升短包通信的传输可靠性，现有研究大多通过优化IRS的反射相位来增强短包通信的性能，而该文则重点研究如何在无线网络中优化IRS的部署策略，以实现更高的通信时效性。该文研究一种IRS辅助的短包通信系统，其中多个终端设备在IRS的协助下向接入节点(AP)传输短包。针对该系统，该文考虑了两种典型IRS部署方案：分布式IRS与集中式IRS。在分布式IRS中，每个设备附近都部署一个配备M个反射单元的IRS，而在集中式IRS中，相同数量和规模的IRS均部署于AP附近。为了比较分布式IRS和集中式IRS辅助短包通信的时效性能，该文采用平均信息年龄(AoI)作为系统的性能指标。然而，复合信道增益的概率分布具有高度复杂性，导致平均AoI的闭式表达式难以直接推导，为此该文采用矩匹配(MM)近似法来获得复合信道增益的近似分布，并在考虑导频开销的情况下，推导出两种部署方案的平均AoI表达式。仿真结果表明：当IRS反射单元数量较大或AP与设备距离较远时，分布式IRS系统展现出更优的AoI性能；而当传输功率较高或系统带宽充足时，集中式IRS系统具有更好的时效性表现。
- 智能反射面 /
- 短包通信 /
- 信息年龄
Abstract: Objective The rapid advancement of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) creates latency-sensitive applications such as environmental monitoring and precision control, which depend on short-packet communications and require strict timeliness of information delivery. An Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) is regarded as a feasible method to enhance the reliability and timeliness of these communications because its reflection coefficients can be dynamically adjusted. Previous work has mainly focused on optimizing the phase shifts of IRS elements, whereas the potential gains associated with flexible IRS deployment have not been fully examined. Adjusting the physical placement of IRS units provides additional degrees of freedom that can improve timeliness performance. Two representative deployment strategies, distributed IRS and centralized IRS, form different effective channels and result in different capacity characteristics. This study investigates and compares these deployment modes in IRS-assisted short-packet communication systems. By assessing their Age of Information (AoI) performance under practical channel estimation overheads, the analysis offers guidance on selecting deployment strategies that achieve superior timeliness under diverse system conditions. Methods The paper investigates an IRS-assisted short-packet communication system in which multiple terminal devices transmit short packets to an Access Point (AP) through IRS reflection. Two deployment strategies are considered: distributed and centralized IRS. In the distributed scheme, each device is supported by a dedicated IRS with M reflecting elements positioned nearby. In the centralized scheme, all IRS elements are placed near the AP. The average AoI is used as the performance metric to compare the timeliness of these strategies. The complex distribution of the composite channel gain makes closed-form average AoI analysis difficult. To address this issue, the Moment Matching (MM) approximation is employed to estimate the distribution of the composite channel gain. By incorporating pilot overhead into the analytical model, closed-form expressions for the average AoI of both deployment schemes are obtained, enabling a thorough performance comparison. Results and Discussions Simulation results show that the AoI performance of distributed and centralized IRS deployments differs under varying system conditions. When the IRS carries a large number of reflecting elements, the distributed configuration yields better AoI performance (Fig. 4). Under high transmission power, the centralized configuration presents improved AoI performance (Fig. 5). For scenarios with long AP–device distances, the distributed deployment produces more favorable AoI results (Fig. 6). As the system bandwidth increases, the centralized architecture shows a rapid decrease in AoI and eventually performs better than the distributed configuration (Fig. 7). Conclusions This study provides a comparative analysis of timeliness performance in IRS-assisted short-packet communication systems under distributed and centralized deployment strategies. The MM method is employed to approximate the composite channel gain with a gamma distribution, which supports the derivation of an approximate expression for the average packet error rate. A closed-form expression for the average AoI is then developed by accounting for channel estimation overhead. Simulation results show that the two deployment strategies exhibit different AoI advantages under varying operating conditions. The distributed configuration achieves better AoI performance when a large number of reflecting elements is used or when the AP–device distance is long. The centralized configuration provides improved AoI performance under high transmission power or wide system bandwidth.
- Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) /
- Short packet communication /
- Age of Information (AoI)

HTML全文

图 1 IRS辅助的短包通信系统

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图 2 传输协议

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图 3 AoI更新过程

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图 4 平均AoI与IRS反射单元数量的关系

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图 5 平均AoI与信号传输功率的关系

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图 6 平均AoI随AP与设备之间距离的变化关系

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图 7 平均AoI与系统带宽的关系

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