On the Association with Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces in Spatially Random Networks

Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) have the potential of increasing the coverage and energy efficiency of future wireless networks. In this paper, we study the performance of an IRS-aided network in the presence of blockages from a large-scale point-of-view, where multiple IRSs are randomly distributed. We model the blockages and IRSs with a line segment process and take into account the fading channels from both the direct and indirect links. The performance of a receiver is studied based on specific association policies, i.e. which IRS(s) should be activated to reflect the signal to the receiver. Specifically, we consider the association with a random IRS, the closest IRS or with all available IRSs in the cell. A complete analytical framework in terms of the outage probability is developed using tools from stochastic geometry. We show that each association policy has its advantages, which heavily depend on the network’s parameters such as the cell-radius, the number of IRS elements and the blockage density.