Outage probability analysis of multiple intelligent reflecting surface-assisted single-input single-output system with switched diversity

Abstract

In this paper, we have presented the outage probability analysis of multiple intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted single-input-single-output (SISO) system with switched diversity schemes. The switched diversity is simpler than the selection combining diversity technique, which can help in reducing the channel estimation overhead. There are two main types of switch diversity schemes, namely, switch and stay combining (SSC) and switch and examine combining (SEC). We consider a SISO wireless scenario in which a single transmitting antenna is sending its message to the receiving antenna with the aid of multiple IRS panels. This communication scenario will arise as a typical application of uplink scenario for future 6G wireless systems. The outage probability (OP) expressions for dual-IRS-panel-aided SSC system and multiple-IRS-panel-aided SEC system are analyzed, respectively, over Rician fading channels. We derive tight approximate OP expressions in closed form for a large number of IRS elements. Further, we derive a simple asymptotic OP for studying diversity order and coding gain. The OP performance with respect to each system parameter is thoroughly explored. Several numerical OP results are presented with corresponding simulated OP results to validate the accuracy of the presented analytical analysis. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.