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Fakultät für Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik
Studierende sitzt am Arbeitsplatz und schaut auf den Laptop. © Aliona Kardash​/​TU Dortmund

IEEE Journal Article on Optimization and Field Trials of our Intelligent Reflecting Surface HELIOS published

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© IEEE - OJ-COMS
HELIOS Measurements in the city centre of Malaga, Spain
The work presents the design process and evaluation of custom-taylored HELIOS reflectors used in experimental trials in the European 6G-SANDBOX project’s 6G test field in Málaga, Spain.

This article contributes to our HELIOS concept which foresees the deployment of custom-tailored additively manufactured reflectors for cost- and energy-efficient enhancements of wireless connectivity in NLOS situations. The work presents an alternating optimization-based customization scheme which is employed to design reflectors for experimental trials in the European 6G-SANDBOX project’s 6G test field in Málaga, Spain. 

The ComNets has been investigating millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications for approximately 8 years with more than five years of hands-on experimentation with intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) for power- and cost-efficient beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) connectivity for more sustainable, future 6G communication networks. The HELIOS concept was proposed in 2023 [1] and constitutes an entirely passive, preconfigured IRS. It has been explored by us with electromagnetic simulations, novel reflection models [2], and experiments in the German 6GEM and 6G-ANNA projects’ industrial test fields [3]. This new article in the prestigious IEEE OJ-COMS journal addresses a research gap which we have so far only investigated briefly [4], i.e., the lack of a holistic IRS customization scheme which identifies the required size, number of reflector unit cells, and 3D tilt angles of the individual modules. Our article moreover conducts a sensitivity analysis on the attained common in-beam reflection for different target beamwidths and operating frequencies, including FR1, FR2, and FR3 spectrum.

Moreover, in cooperation with Keysight Technologies and KU Leuven, the reflectors were independently measured in the European test field Málaga, which is managed by the 6G-SANBOX project. All provided HELIOS samples – with different angles of incidence and reflection beamwidths, improved the mmWave connectivity within an urban street canyon. Specifically, the received power and transmit power levels of the BLOS link were respectively improved by 10 dB against the NLOS deployment, leading to throughput enhancements of about 275 Mbps despite using the minimum FR2 bandwidth of just 100 MHz. Overall, considering the lower costs of HELIOS IRSs as well as that they do not require any power, the experiment clearly shows that this is a tangible way to reduce the need for costly full-blown active antennas, leading to more sustainable 6G networks. Against this background, the ComNets team thanks Keysight Technologies, KU Leuven, and the 6G-SANDBOX project for this fruitful research cooperation and looks forward to future cooperations.

Published Article

S. Häger, J. Ferreira, S. Böcker, D. Schreurs, C. Wietfeld, "Passive Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces for Efficient 6G mmWave Networks: Design, Validation, and Field Trials," in IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, pp. 1-31, Mar. 2026, DOI: 10.1109/OJCOMS.2026.3673516. (Early Access) [pdf] [IEEE Xplore] [Details]

Acknowledgment

This work has been partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) in the course of the 6GEM research hub under the grant 16KISK038, the 6GEM+ transfer hub under the grant 16KIS2412, and the PANGOLIN Networks project under the grant 16KIS2357, by the European Union‘s Horizon Research and Innovation Program HORIZON-JU-SNS-2022 in the course of the 6G-SANDBOX project under the grant 101096328, and by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks HORIZON-MSCA-2022-DN-01 in the course of the MiFuture project under the grant 101119643.

Additional references

  • S. Häger, K. Heimann, S. Böcker, C. Wietfeld, "Holistic Enlightening of Blackspots with Passive Tailorable Reflecting Surfaces for Efficient Urban mmWave Networks," In IEEE Access, vol. 11, pp. 39318-39332, April 2023. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3267676.[pdf] [IEEE Xplore] [Details]

  • S. Häger, S. Böcker, C. Wietfeld, "Reflection Modeling of Modular Passive IRS Geometries," in IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 1366-1370, May 2025. DOI: 10.1109/LWC.2025.3542564. [pdf] [IEEE Xplore] [Details]

  • M. Danger, C. Arendt, H. Schippers, S. Böcker, M. Muehleisen, P. Becker, J. B. Caro, G. Gjorgjievska, M. A. Latif, J. Ansari, N. Beckmann, N. König, R. Schmitt, C. Wietfeld, "Performance Evaluation of IRS-enhanced mmWave Connectivity for 6G Industrial Networks", in IEEE International Symposium on Measurements and Networking (M&N), Rome, Italy, July 2024. (Best Paper Young Author Award.) [pdf] [IEEE Xplore] [Dataset] [Details]

  • S. Häger, M. Danger, K. Heimann, Y. Gümüs, S. Böcker, C. Wietfeld, "Custom Design and Experimental Evaluation of Passive Reflectors for mmWave Private Networks," in IEEE International Symposium on Local and Metropolitan Area Networks (LANMAN), Boston, USA, July 2024. (Best Paper Award.) [pdf] [IEEE Xplore] [Details]