Differential Reflecting Modulation for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface-Based Communications

Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) based communications have emerged as a new paradigm. This letter proposes a differential reflecting modulation (DRM) scheme for RIS based communication systems. In DRM, information bits are jointly carried by the activation permutations of the reflecting patterns and the phases of the transmitted signals, leading to that DRM can work without any channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter, RIS or receiver. In other words, DRM can release the intricate and resource-consuming channel estimation in the transmission process. Simulation results show that the proposed DRM pays an acceptable SNR penalty compared to non-differential modulation with coherent detection.

Automated summary

This letter proposes a scheme for RIS based communication systems using differential reflecting modulation (DRM), which can work without any channel state information (CSI) and avoid the complex and resource-consuming channel estimation in the transmission process. Simulation results show that the proposed DRM has an acceptable SNR penalty compared to non-differential modulation with coherent detection.