Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces for Free Space Optical Communications

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In this paper, we investigate the use of intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) (i.e., smart mirrors) to relax the line-of-sight requirement of free space optical (FSO) systems.

• We characterize the impact of the physical parameters of the IRS, such as its size, position, and orientation, on the quality of the end-to-end FSO channel.
• In addition, we develop a statistical channel model for the geometric and the misalignment losses which accounts for the random movements of the IRS, transmitter, and receiver due to building sway.
• This model can be used for performance analysis of IRS-based FSO systems.