Rethinking Passive RIS: Finite Blocklength Reliability Analysis Under Thermal Noise

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Karim, Farjam, Kumar, Deepak, Dharmawansa, Prathapasinghe, Mahmood, Nurul Huda, de Sena, Arthur Sousa, Latva-aho, Matti
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Karim, Farjam
Kumar, Deepak
Dharmawansa, Prathapasinghe
Mahmood, Nurul Huda
de Sena, Arthur Sousa
Latva-aho, Matti
author_facet Karim, Farjam
Kumar, Deepak
Dharmawansa, Prathapasinghe
Mahmood, Nurul Huda
de Sena, Arthur Sousa
Latva-aho, Matti
contents Short-packet communication alters the fundamental performance limits of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted systems, making conventional analyses based on the infinite blocklength regime insufficient. This work investigates RIS-assisted transmission in the finite blocklength (FBL) regime while explicitly incorporating thermal noise generated by passive RIS elements, an effect commonly neglected in existing models. A unified analytical framework is developed to characterize the block-error rate (BLER), its asymptotic behavior, and the resulting goodput under both uniform and non-uniform RIS reflection coefficients. Our results show that ignoring RIS thermal noise leads to a pronounced overestimation of reliability with the mismatch increasing as the number of reflecting elements grows. Furthermore, increasing the RIS size does not always improve performance, particularly in the low transmit power regime where accumulated noise becomes dominant. Overall, the results highlight fundamental limitations of idealized RIS models and demonstrate the need for incorporating thermal noise for accurate system evaluation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_21760
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Rethinking Passive RIS: Finite Blocklength Reliability Analysis Under Thermal Noise
Karim, Farjam
Kumar, Deepak
Dharmawansa, Prathapasinghe
Mahmood, Nurul Huda
de Sena, Arthur Sousa
Latva-aho, Matti
Signal Processing
Short-packet communication alters the fundamental performance limits of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted systems, making conventional analyses based on the infinite blocklength regime insufficient. This work investigates RIS-assisted transmission in the finite blocklength (FBL) regime while explicitly incorporating thermal noise generated by passive RIS elements, an effect commonly neglected in existing models. A unified analytical framework is developed to characterize the block-error rate (BLER), its asymptotic behavior, and the resulting goodput under both uniform and non-uniform RIS reflection coefficients. Our results show that ignoring RIS thermal noise leads to a pronounced overestimation of reliability with the mismatch increasing as the number of reflecting elements grows. Furthermore, increasing the RIS size does not always improve performance, particularly in the low transmit power regime where accumulated noise becomes dominant. Overall, the results highlight fundamental limitations of idealized RIS models and demonstrate the need for incorporating thermal noise for accurate system evaluation.
title Rethinking Passive RIS: Finite Blocklength Reliability Analysis Under Thermal Noise
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.21760