Star-ris-aided Communications Achieve Enhanced Secrecy Rates with Full-Space Signal Manipulation
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Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces offer exciting possibilities for improving wireless communication, and researchers are now exploring innovative ways to harness their potential, including simultaneous transmission and reflection. Taissir Y. Elganimi from University of Tripoli, Mahmoud Aldababsa from Nisantasi University, and Ali A. Nasir and Khaled M. Rabie from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals present a detailed analytical comparison of these advanced systems, known as STAR-RIS, against more conventional approaches. Their work establishes clear performance benchmarks for STAR-RIS technology, demonstrating its ability to significantly enhance both data rates and secure communication, even in the presence of eavesdroppers. By deriving fundamental limits on achievable performance and identifying the conditions under which STAR-RIS excels, this research provides crucial insights for the design and deployment of next-generation wireless networks. This work presents a detailed analytical comparison of these advanced systems against more conventional approaches, establishing clear performance benchmarks and demonstrating the ability of STAR-RIS technology to significantly enhance both data rates and secure communication, even in the presence of eavesdroppers. By determining the limits of achievable performance and identifying the conditions under which STAR-RIS excels, this research provides crucial insights for the design and deployment of next-generation wireless networks. STAR-RIS Secrecy Rates and Performance Gains Researchers have developed a system employing reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, termed STAR-RIS, to simultaneously transmit and reflect wireless signals, significantly enhancing signal manipulation and network capacity. This work presents a detailed analytical comparison of STAR-RIS technology with conventional single-input single-output systems, traditional reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, and decode-and-forward relaying schemes, examining both half-duplex and full-duplex modes.
The team derived precise mathematical expressions to determine the achievable secrecy rates of STAR-RIS communication, considering scenarios both with and without eavesdroppers, and importantly incorporated a direct link between the source and destination in all tested configurations. The investigation also determined the optimal allocation of transmit power for both half-duplex and full-duplex decode-and-forward relaying, and established the conditions under which STAR-RIS outperforms these alternative approaches. Researchers quantified the minimum number of elements required within the STAR-RIS to achieve superior data rates, and explored the impact of various system parameters, including transmit power, the number of elements, the ratio of reflected to transmitted power, and the physical deployment of the system.
Results demonstrate that STAR-RIS systems can achieve higher rates and improved security compared to benchmark schemes, even with a relatively small number of elements. The authors acknowledge that the performance of the system is dependent on accurate channel estimation and that the model assumes ideal switching between transmission and reflection modes. Future research directions include investigating the impact of imperfect channel estimation and exploring more complex deployment scenarios to further optimize the performance of STAR-RIS technology. This work provides valuable guidelines for system designers, identifying appropriate use cases for different transmission methods and highlighting the potential benefits of incorporating STAR-RIS technology into future wireless networks. STAR-RIS Outperforms Traditional Relaying Schemes This work presents a comprehensive analytical comparison of simultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (STAR-RISs) with single-input single-output systems, conventional reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, and decode-and-forward relaying schemes, both in half-duplex and full-duplex modes. Researchers derived closed-form expressions for achievable secrecy rates in STAR-RIS-aided communications, considering both scenarios with and without eavesdroppers, and incorporated a direct source-destination link into all schemes investigated. Optimal transmit power allocation was explored for both half-duplex and full-duplex decode-and-forward relaying configurations to maximize performance. The study rigorously defines the conditions under which STAR-RIS outperforms both half-duplex and full-duplex decode-and-forward relaying, and quantifies the minimum number of STAR-RIS elements required to achieve superior rates. Investigations into key system parameters, including transmit power, the number of elements, the reflection-to-transmission power ratio, the element-splitting factor, and deployment positions, reveal their impacts on both achievable and secrecy performance.
Results demonstrate that STAR-RIS systems consistently achieve superior rates and secrecy rates compared to all benchmark schemes under evaluation. Specifically, the research establishes a clear advantage for STAR-RIS in scenarios demanding full-space coverage, overcoming the half-space limitations of conventional RIS configurations. By simultaneously reflecting and transmitting signals, STAR-RIS enables intelligent signal manipulation across the entire coverage area, serving users on both sides of the surface.
The team’s analysis confirms that the performance gains of STAR-RIS are particularly pronounced when a sufficient number of elements are deployed, offering a compelling alternative to traditional relaying technologies. This work provides a foundational understanding of the capabilities of STAR-RIS and its potential to significantly enhance wireless communication systems. 👉 More information 🗞 STAR-RIS-Aided Secure Communications:Analytical Insights and Performance Comparison 🧠 ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.11461 Tags: