Practical RIS Gain without the Pain: Randomization and Opportunistic Scheduling in 5G NR

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Yashvanth, L., Malleboina, Raju, Akumalla, Venkatareddy, Kiran, Nekkanti Guna Sai, Sarkar, Debdeep, Murthy, Chandra R.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Yashvanth, L.
Malleboina, Raju
Akumalla, Venkatareddy
Kiran, Nekkanti Guna Sai
Sarkar, Debdeep
Murthy, Chandra R.
author_facet Yashvanth, L.
Malleboina, Raju
Akumalla, Venkatareddy
Kiran, Nekkanti Guna Sai
Sarkar, Debdeep
Murthy, Chandra R.
contents We experimentally demonstrate the performance gains achieved by an in-house built reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) integrated with a real-time 5G new radio (NR) system implemented using the OpenAirInterface (OAI) framework. We first quantify the gain in throughput achievable by integrating an RIS with a 5G system. Next, we show that randomly setting the RIS phase configuration and leveraging the inherent proportional fair (PF) scheduling mechanism of 5G NR can yield near-optimal throughput, provided the throughput averaging window of the PF scheduler is chosen judiciously. This occurs because, in each time slot, the PF scheduler naturally prioritizes data transmission to the user equipment (UE) that experiences the best channel conditions, namely, the UE to which the randomly configured RIS is aligned. Subsequently, we experimentally evaluate key performance metrics, including the reference signal received power (RSRP), block error rate (BLER), modulation and coding scheme (MCS) index, and throughput, under random RIS configurations. These results confirm that even a randomly configured RIS with negligible overhead can deliver performance comparable to optimized RIS designs, in real-world 5G NR wireless communication systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_12437
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Practical RIS Gain without the Pain: Randomization and Opportunistic Scheduling in 5G NR
Yashvanth, L.
Malleboina, Raju
Akumalla, Venkatareddy
Kiran, Nekkanti Guna Sai
Sarkar, Debdeep
Murthy, Chandra R.
Signal Processing
We experimentally demonstrate the performance gains achieved by an in-house built reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) integrated with a real-time 5G new radio (NR) system implemented using the OpenAirInterface (OAI) framework. We first quantify the gain in throughput achievable by integrating an RIS with a 5G system. Next, we show that randomly setting the RIS phase configuration and leveraging the inherent proportional fair (PF) scheduling mechanism of 5G NR can yield near-optimal throughput, provided the throughput averaging window of the PF scheduler is chosen judiciously. This occurs because, in each time slot, the PF scheduler naturally prioritizes data transmission to the user equipment (UE) that experiences the best channel conditions, namely, the UE to which the randomly configured RIS is aligned. Subsequently, we experimentally evaluate key performance metrics, including the reference signal received power (RSRP), block error rate (BLER), modulation and coding scheme (MCS) index, and throughput, under random RIS configurations. These results confirm that even a randomly configured RIS with negligible overhead can deliver performance comparable to optimized RIS designs, in real-world 5G NR wireless communication systems.
title Practical RIS Gain without the Pain: Randomization and Opportunistic Scheduling in 5G NR
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.12437