This article has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

This is the author's version which has not been fully edited and
content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TWC.2022.3210706

Beyond Diagonal Reconfigurable Intelligent

Surfaces: From Transmitting and Reflecting Modes
to Single-, Group-, and Fully-Connected
Architectures
Hongyu Li, Student Member, IEEE, Shanpu Shen, Member, IEEE, and Bruno Clerckx, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) are envi- phase shifts and amplitudes) for incident signals [4]. Thus,
sioned as a promising technology for future wireless commu- RISs can be flexibly deployed into various wireless communi-
nications. With various hardware realizations, RISs can work cation systems to modify the propagation environment without
under different modes (reflective/transmissive/hybrid) or have
different architectures (single/group/fully-connected). However, much power consumption.
most existing research focused on single-connected reflective There are various tunable surface designs for RIS real-
RISs, mathematically characterized by diagonal phase shift izations. On one hand, when each element of the RIS has
matrices, while there is a lack of a comprehensive study for different hardware realizations (i.e., the number of layers, size,
RISs unifying different modes/architectures. In this paper, we thickness, the number and distributions of PIN diodes), the
solve this issue by analyzing and proposing a general RIS-
aided communication model. Specifically, we establish an RIS RIS can work under three modes: transmission, reflection,
model not limited to diagonal phase shift matrices, a novel and hybrid transmission and reflection [5], [6]. As for the
branch referred to as beyond diagonal RIS (BD-RIS), unifying reflective/transmissive RIS, incident signals are either reflected
modes and architectures. With the proposed model, we develop from or transmitted through the RIS towards the same/opposite
efficient algorithms to jointly design transmit precoder and BD- side as the transmitter. For the hybrid transmissive and re-
RIS matrix to maximize the sum-rate for RIS-aided systems. We
also provide simulation results to compare the performance of flective RIS, incident signals are split into two parts and can
BD-RISs with different modes/architectures. Simulation results simultaneously arrive at both sides of the RIS. On the other
show that under the same mode, fully- and group-connected hand, RISs with different architectures have recently been
RIS can effectively increase the sum-rate performance compared modeled and designed by using scattering parameter network
with single-connected RIS, and that hybrid RIS outperforms analysis [7]. According to the circuit topology among different
reflective/transmissive RIS with the same architecture.
RIS elements, RIS can be classified into three kinds of ar-
Index Terms—Architectures, beyond diagonal reconfigurable chitectures: single-, group-, and fully-connected architectures.
intelligent surface (BD-RIS), modes. The single-connected architecture, in which each element is
not connected with each other, has been widely considered in
I. I NTRODUCTION existing research. When all/part of RIS elements are connected
with each other, fully/group-connected architectures can be
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs), which can build implemented to further enhance the RIS performance.
controllable radio environments and improve communication The conventional RIS, which essentially has the single-
quality in a cost-effective manner [1]–[3], have recently been connected architecture and works under the reflective mode
regarded as a revolutionary technology for wireless communi- yielding mathematically a diagonal phase shift matrix, is most
cation research. An RIS is a two-dimensional planar surface commonly considered in previous research [8]–[24]. Beam-
which consists of numerous nearly passive elements with forming designs for single RIS-aided wireless communication
ultra-low power consumption. Each element has a multi-layer systems were developed using different metrics, e.g., power
structure composed of rectangle patches and tunable devices, minimization, rate maximization, max-min fairness [8]–[10].
e.g., positive intrinsic negative (PIN) diodes. Each PIN diode Considering the high hardware complexity and cost of realiz-
of each element can be independently switched between “ON” ing RISs with infinite/high-resolution phase shifts, research on
and “OFF” states, thereby generating different responses (i.e., practical finite/low-resolution cases was also developed [11]–
[13]. To improve the system performance, some researchers
Manuscript received May 5, 2022; revised August 5, 2022; accepted
September 19, 2022. This work was supported by Hong Kong Research Grants studied the deployment of multiple RISs and coordination
Council through the Collaborative Research Fund under Grant C6012-20G. problems [14]–[16]. In addition, RIS has also been investigated
The associate editor coordinating the review of this article and approving it for to provide performance enhancement in various scenarios, e.g.,
publication was Dr. Chao-Kai Wen. (Corresponding author: Shanpu Shen.)
H. Li and B. Clerckx are with the Department of Electrical and Elec- Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) [17], Simultaneous Wireless
tronic Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, U.K. Information and Power Transfer (SWIPT) [18]. Different
(email:{c.li21,b.clerckx}@imperial.ac.uk). channel estimation algorithms for RIS-aided systems were
S. Shen is with the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering,
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, proposed based on either traditional communication theories
Kowloon, Hong Kong (email: [email protected]). [19] or machine learning approaches [20]. While the afore-

© 2022 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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 This article has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. This is the author's version which has not been fully edited and
content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TWC.2022.3210706

RIS classification tree in Fig. 1, we classify the aforementioned

Depends on if the Scattering Matrix is Diagonal
studies as diagonal RIS under the reflective mode [8]–[24]
and BD-RIS, which includes block-diagonal RIS (group/fully-
Beyond Diagonal RIS (BD-RIS) connected RIS) under the reflective mode [7], [25] and under
Diagonal Matrix: Block Diagonal Matrix:
Single-Connected Group/Fully-Connected
Non-Diagonal Matrix the hybrid mode (STAR-RIS) [5], [6], [27], [28], and non-
diagonal RIS under the reflective mode [26]. In this paper,
Depends on Supported Modes
we provide a thorough analysis of BD-RIS and extend new
branches of the RIS tree. The main contributions of this paper
Reflective Mode Reflective Mode Hybrid Mode Reflective Mode
are summarized as follows:
Depends on Inter-Cell Architecture First, we analyze and propose a general BD-RIS-aided
communication model using microwave network theory. The
Cell-Wise Cell-Wise Group/
Single-Connected Fully-Connected
proposed model is derived by characterizing an RIS as multiple
antennas connected to a group-connected multi-port reconfig-
Group/Fully- Non-Diagonal Phase
Conventional RIS
Connected RIS
STAR-RIS This Work
Shift Matrix urable impedance network. In conventional (diagonal) RIS,
there are no connections among different ports of the multi-
Fig. 1. RIS classification tree. port reconfigurable impedance network, which is unable to
support different modes. However, by establishing connections
among different ports, we can realize more flexible modes,
mentioned research on reflective single-connected RIS [8]– e.g., the hybrid mode as shown in Fig. 1.
[20] assumes an ideal RIS reflection model, practical RIS Second, we prove that STAR-RIS [5], [6], [27], [28] is math-
model analysis has been proposed for both narrowband [21] ematically a special case of block diagonal RIS and physically
and wideband systems [22]–[24]. based on group-connected reconfigurable impedance network
Limited work has been carried out for RIS models be- when each two ports are connected to each other. Specif-
yond diagonal phase shift matrices. [7] first proposed to ically, we introduce the concept of “cell”, which includes
analyze the modeling of RIS based on the scattering parameter each 2 antenna ports connected to each other via reconfig-
network and categorized the RIS into single-, group-, and urable impedance components. Then STAR-RIS belongs to the
fully-connected RIS architectures. Interestingly, in contrast to branch “cell-wise single-connected” in Fig. 1, which indicates
conventional RIS that relies on diagonal phase shift (scat- there are no connections among different cells.
tering) matrix to only adjust the phases of the impinging Third, we go beyond cell-wise single-connected BD-RIS
waves, the group- and fully-connected RIS rely on more (STAR-RIS) and create a new branch, namely “cell-wise
controllable scattering matrix, not limited to diagonal matrix, group/fully-connected” as shown in Fig. 1, which means part
which enables them to adjust not only the phases but also of/all the cells are connected to each other. We investigate three
the magnitudes of the impinging waves, therefore providing modes (reflective, transmissive, and hybrid) and three architec-
additional performance enhancements over conventional RIS. tures (cell-wise single-, group-, and fully-connected), in total
Following this work, the authors in [25] further considered de- nine cases as summarized in Table I. This is the first paper to
signs of single/group/fully-connected RIS with discrete values. characterize RIS by taking nine different modes/architectures
Results suggest that while four resolution bits are needed in into consideration. The nine cases of the proposed BD-RIS
single-connected RIS, only a single resolution bit is sufficient model contain the modeling of conventional RIS [8]–[20] and
in fully-connected RIS, simplifying significantly the future group/fully-connected RIS [7], [25] (the first row in Table I),
development of these promising RIS architectures. Motivated and STAR-RIS [5], [6], [27], [28] (the third row and the first
by those benefits of RIS beyond diagonal phase matrices, column of Table I).
authors in [26] branched out to propose another novel RIS Fourth, with the proposed BD-RIS model, we consider the
architecture with non-diagonal phase shift matrices, which joint transmit precoder and BD-RIS matrix design to maximize
resulted in a higher rate compared to conventional single- the sum-rate for an RIS-aided multiuser multiple input single
connected cases. Recently, some researchers have started to output (MU-MISO) system. Specifically, we first propose a
focus on RISs working under the hybrid mode [5], [6], [27], general solution suitable for nine modes/architectures. Then
[28], whose mathematical model is also beyond diagonal for cell-wise single-connected case, we propose an efficient
phase shift matrix. Specifically, Xu et al. [28] introduced the solution, which has similar performance, but lower compu-
concept of hybrid transmissive and reflective RIS, which was tational complexity compared to the general one. We also
also referred to as simultaneously transmitting and reflecting provide initialization, convergence, and complexity analysis
RIS (STAR-RIS) or intelligent omni-surface (IOS) [5], [27], of the proposed design.
generated hardware and channel models, and analyzed the Fifth, we provide simulation results to evaluate the per-
achievable diversity gain. formance of the proposed design. We compare the sum-
To establish a clear classification of RIS, we start from the rate performance when the BD-RIS is under nine different
mathematical characteristic of the scattering matrix of RIS, modes/architectures. Simulation results with specific parame-
categorizing RIS into diagonal RIS and beyond diagonal RIS ter settings show that under Rayleigh fading conditions, cell-
(BD-RIS). Namely, the scattering matrix is (not) restricted wise fully- and group-connected hybrid BD-RISs can achieve
to be diagonal, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Based on the RIS 75% and 37% higher sum-rate than cell-wise single-connected

© 2022 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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 This article has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. This is the author's version which has not been fully edited and
content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TWC.2022.3210706

TABLE I
N INE C ASES OF B EYOND D IAGONAL RIS

Architectures
Cell-Wise Single-Connected Cell-Wise Group-Connected Cell-Wise Fully-Connected
Modes
Reflective |φr,m | = 1, ∀m ∈ M ΦHr,g Φr,g = IM̄ , ∀g ∈ G ΦHr Φr = IM
Transmissive |φt,m | = 1, ∀m ∈ M ΦHt,g Φt,g = IM̄ , ∀g ∈ G ΦHt Φt = IM
Hybrid |φr,m |2 + |φt,m |2 = 1, ∀m ∈ M ΦH H
r,g Φr,g + Φt,g Φt,g = IM̄ , ∀g ∈ G ΦH H
r Φr + Φt Φt = IM

RIS we consider an M -cell1 RIS indexed by M = {1, . . . , M }

User 1 N1 where the mth cell consists of antenna m and antenna m+M .
Antenna 1 Antenna M+1
Cell 1
Therefore, in this M -cell RIS, there are 2M antennas con-
Antenna 2
Cell 2
Antenna M+2 NK1+1 User K1+1 nected to a 2M -port reconfigurable impedance network, as
2M-Port shown in Fig. 2. According to [7], assuming that the multiple
User K1 NK1 Reconfigurable antennas at the transmitter/receiver/RIS are perfectly matched
Impedance Network
Antenna M-1 Antenna 2M-1
with no mutual coupling, the overall channel matrix between
the transmitter and each user, Hall,k ∈ CNk ×N , k ∈ K, can
Cell M-1 NK1+K2 User K1+K2

Transmitter N
Antenna M
Cell M
Antenna 2M
be expressed as

Hall,k = Hd,k + Hk ΦG, ∀k ∈ K, (1)

Fig. 2. Diagram of an M -cell RIS-aided communication system.

where Hd,k ∈ CNk ×N , Hk ∈ CNk ×2M , ∀k ∈ K, and

G ∈ C2M ×N denote channel matrices from the transmitter
hybrid ones. In the meanwhile, the sum-rate achieved by cell-
to user k, from the RIS to user k, and from the transmitter to
wise fully-connected hybrid BD-RISs over that by cell-wise
the RIS, respectively. Φ ∈ C2M ×2M denotes the scattering
fully-connected reflective/transmissive ones can be around
matrix of the 2M -port reconfigurable impedance network
20% for Rician fading channels.
[7]. According to microwave network theory [7], [29], Φ
Organization: Section II introduces a BD-RIS-aided com-
should satisfy ΦH Φ  I2M . Particularly, when the 2M -
munication model. Then Section III presents a generalized RIS
port reconfigurable impedance network is lossless, we have
model based on architecture/mode analysis and design. With
ΦH Φ = I2M 2 . It is worth noting that the structure of the
the proposed model, Section IV formulates an optimization
matrix Φ is determined by the circuit topology of the 2M -port
problem and illustrates solutions for the formulated problem.
reconfigurable impedance network. Therefore, different from
Section V evaluates the performance of the proposed design.
traditional RIS model with a diagonal matrix, the matrix Φ is
Finally, Section VI provides conclusions and future work.
not restricted to be diagonal, which is referred to as BD-RIS.
Notations: Boldface lower-case and upper-case letters in-
To show that existing RIS-aided communication model [5],
dicate column vectors and matrices, respectively. C and R
[6], [27], [28] is a special case of our proposed model, we
denote the set of complex and real numbers, respectively. E{·}
first make the following assumptions:
represents statistical expectation. (·)∗ , (·)T , (·)H , and (·)−1 de-
note the conjugate, transpose, conjugate-transpose operations, A1: Each antenna has a uni-directional radiation pattern3 .
and inversion, respectively. <{·} denotes the real part of a A2: In each cell, the two antennas are back to back placed so
complex number. IL indicates an L × L identity matrix. 0 that each antenna covers half space as shown in Fig. 3.
denotes an all-zero matrix. kAkF denotes the Frobenius norm
of matrix A. |a| denotes the norm of variable a. |A| denotes With these assumptions, we can divide the M -cell BD-RIS
the size of set A. diag(·) denotes a diagonal matrix. blkdiag(·) into 2 sectors, where the first sector consists of antennas 1-
denotes a block matrix such that the main-diagonal blocks M and the other sector consists of antennas M +1-2M , and
are √matrices and all off-diagonal blocks are zero matrices. thus the M -cell RIS partitions the whole space into two
 = −1 denotes imaginary unit. Tr(·) denotes the summation sides, which are respectively covered by the two sectors.
of diagonal elements of a matrix. Finally, [A]i,: , [A]:,j , and
[A]i,j denote the i-th row, the j-th column, and the (i, j)-th 1 Here we use “cell” instead of “element” since in existing works each RIS
element of matrix A, respectively. element contains one antenna, while in this work each cell has two antennas.
The “cell” is illustrated in Fig. 2.
2 Here we should explain that matrix Φ is a scattering matrix, which
provides an integrated description of a network as seen at its 2M ports.
II. BD-RIS-A IDED C OMMUNICATION M ODEL The scattering matrix associates the voltage of incident waves with reflected
waves from the ports. When the multi-port network is lossless, no power can
Consider an RIS-aided wireless communication system, be delivered to the network so that the incident and reflected power are equal
where an N -antenna transmitter indexed by N = {1, . . . , N } to each other. In this case, it can be derived that the scattering matrix satisfies
a unitary constraint [29].
serves K multi-antenna users with the assistance of an RIS. 3 In practice the uni-directional radiation pattern can be achieved by using
Each user has Nk antennas, ∀k ∈ K = {1, . . . , K}. In general, microstrip patch antennas or by adding a reflecting ground plane.

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 This article has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. This is the author's version which has not been fully edited and
content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TWC.2022.3210706

Sector 1 RIS Sector 2

Antenna 1
Antenna M+1
User 1
User
Cell 1
K1+1

User K1
User
2-Port
Port K1+K
K2
Transmitter
Network
Cell 1
Uni-Directional Uni-Directional Antenna 1 Antenna M+1
Radiation Pattern Radiation Pattern

Fig. 4. Top view for the locations of the M -cell BD-RIS partitioning the
whole space into two sides, the transmitter, and multiple users.
Fig. 3. An M -cell BD-RIS with 2M back to back placed uni-directional
antennas.
using auxiliary notations, Hk = Hk,i , ∀k ∈ Ki , ∀i ∈ {1, 2},
Φr = Φ1,1 , Φt = Φ2,1 , and G = G1 , we can rewrite (3) as
Accordingly, we partition the overall channel matrix (1) as 
Hd,k + Hk Φr G, k ∈ Kr ,

 Φ1,1 Φ1,2

G1
 Hall,k = (4)

Hall,k =Hd,k + Hk,1 Hk,2 Hd,k + Hk Φt G, k ∈ Kt .
Φ2,1 Φ2,2 G2
(2) Given that ΦH Φ = I2M , Φt and Φr should satisfy the
=Hd,k + Hk,1 Φ1,1 G1 + Hk,2 Φ2,1 G1
following constraint:
+ Hk,1 Φ1,2 G2 + Hk,2 Φ2,2 G2 , ∀k ∈ K,
ΦH H
r Φr + Φt Φt = IM . (5)
Nk ×M
where Hk,i = [Hk ]:,(i−1)M +1:iM ∈ C , ∀k ∈ K, and
Gi = [G](i−1)M +1:iM,: ∈ CM ×N , ∀i ∈ {1, 2} are channels Based on the above analysis, we have verified that the
between sector i of the RIS and user k, and between the communication model utilized in STAR-RIS [5], [6], [27], [28]
transmitter and sector i of the RIS, respectively. Φi,j = is a special instance of our models (4) and (5). In the following
[Φ](i−1)M +1:iM,(j−1)M +1:jM ∈ CM ×M , ∀i, j ∈ {1, 2}. section, we will go beyond STAR-RIS and investigate different
Without loss of generality, we assume that the transmitter cases of constraint (5).
and K1 users, indexed by K1 = {1, . . . , K1 }, 0 < K1 < K,
are located at one side of the RIS (covered by sector 1), and III. A RCHITECTURE /M ODE A NALYSIS AND D ESIGN
K2 = K − K1 users, indexed by K2 = {K1 + 1, . . . , K},
A. Architecture Analysis and Design
are located at the other side of the RIS (covered by sector
2). To facilitate understanding, we illustrate the locations of In [7], three kinds of RIS architectures which have different
the transmitter, RIS, and users from a top view as shown in RIS element circuit topologies have been proposed. In this
Fig. 4. Following assumptions A1 and A2, we can deduce the subsection, we generalize this concept by analyzing and de-
following two corollaries: signing the M -cell BD-RIS architecture4 with different cell
C1: The channel from the transmitter to sector 2 of the BD- circuit topologies as detailed below.
RIS is zero, that is G2 = 0, as the transmitter is not 1) Cell-Wise Single-Connected (CW-SC) Architecture: In
covered by the uni-directional radiation pattern of sector this architecture, cells of the BD-RIS are not connected to
2 of the BD-RIS. each other. Fig. 5(a) provides a simple example of CW-SC
C2: The channel from sector i of the BD-RIS to the user BD-RIS with 2 cells. Thus, matrices Φr , Φt are all diagonal,
belonging to Kj is zero ∀i 6= j, that is Hk,i = 0, ∀k ∈ which are given by
Kj , ∀i 6= j, as the user belonging to Kj is not covered Φr = diag(φr,1 , . . . , φr,M ),
by the uni-directional radiation pattern of sector i. (6)
Φt = diag(φt,1 , . . . , φt,M ),
Leveraging corollaries C1 and C2, we can simplify the channel
matrix (2) as where the entries φt/r,m , ∀m ∈ M, satisfy the constraints

Hd,k + Hk,1 Φ1,1 G1 , k ∈ K1 , |φr,m |2 + |φt,m |2 = 1, ∀m ∈ M. (7)
Hall,k = (3)
Hd,k + Hk,2 Φ2,1 G1 , k ∈ K2 . The BD-RIS with a CW-SC architecture is essentially the
We denote users within the coverage of sector 1 of the BD-RIS STAR-RIS [5], [6], [27], [28].
as reflective users, indexed by Kr = K1 , Kr = K1 . Similarly, 4 The following single/fully/group-connected architectures refer to the inter-
we denote users within the coverage of sector 2 as transmissive cell circuit topologies. The 2 antennas within the same cell are connected to
users, indexed by Kt = K2 , Kt = K2 = K − Kr . Then, a 2-port fully-connected reconfigurable impedance network.

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 This article has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. This is the author's version which has not been fully edited and
content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TWC.2022.3210706

2-Cell BD-RIS with Cell-Wise 4-Cell BD-RIS with Cell-Wise B. Mode Analysis
Single-Connected Architecture Group-Connected Architecture
No. of Group: 2 According to the proportion of energy split for reflection
Group 1
Z1 Cell 1 Z3 and transmission, the BD-RIS is able to realize the following
Antenna 1 Antenna 3 Cell 1
Antenna 1
Z1 Z5
Antenna 5 three different modes [5], [6]:
Z1,3
Z1,5 1) Reflective Mode: The BD-RIS only reflects signals
towards the same side as the transmitter, i.e., Φt = 0,
Cell 2
Antenna 2 Antenna 4 Z1,6
Z1,2 Z2,5 Z5,6 ΦH r Φr = IM .
Z2,4
Z2 Z4 2) Transmissive Mode: Incident signals only penetrate the
Cell 2
(a)
Antenna 2 Antenna 6 BD-RIS, i.e., Φr = 0, ΦH t Φt = IM .
Z2
Z2,6
Z6
3) Hybrid Reflective and Transmissive Mode: Incident sig-
2-Cell BD-RIS with Cell-Wise nals can both reflect from and transmit through the BD-RIS,
Fully-Connected Architecture Group 2
which leads to a dual function of reflection and transmission5 ,
Z1 Cell 1 Z3 Z3 Cell 3 Z7
Antenna 1 Antenna 3 Antenna 3 Antenna 7 i.e., Φr 6= 0, Φt 6= 0, ΦH H
r Φr + Φt Φt = IM .
Z1,3 Z3,7

Z1,4 Z3,8 C. Unified Architecture and Mode

Z1,2 Z Z3,4 Z3,4 Z Z7,8
2,3 4,7
Combining three different BD-RIS architectures and three
Cell 2 Cell 4
Antenna 2 Antenna 4 Antenna 4 Antenna 8 modes, there are in total nine cases. For clarity, the BD-RIS
Z2
Z2,4
Z4
Z4,8 models for the nine cases are summarized in Table I.
Z4 Z8
(b) (c)
Remark 1. In [7], an M -element RIS is modeled as M
antennas connected to an M -port reconfigurable impedance
Fig. 5. Examples of (a) CW-SC BD-RIS, (b) CW-FC BD-RIS, and (c) CW-
GC BD-RIS. network. In this work, we further generalize the RIS model by
modeling an M -cell RIS as 2M antennas connected to a 2M -
port network. Namely, each RIS “element” in [7] contains a
2) Cell-Wise Fully-Connected (CW-FC) Architecture: We single antenna, while each RIS “cell” in this work contains
propose and design a generalized RIS architecture referred two back to back placed uni-directional antennas, which can
to as CW-FC architecture where all cells of the BD-RIS are support reflective and transmissive modes. Particularly, when
connected to each other through reconfigurable impedance the RIS works in the reflective mode, our proposed model boils
components. In Fig. 5(b), we give an example of CW-FC BD- down to the model in [7], as shown in the first row (starting
RIS with 2 cells. Thus, Φr , Φt are all full matrices satisfying from “Reflective”) of Table I. Prior works on conventional RIS
the constraint [8]–[20] is a subset of group/fully-connected RIS [7] and also
ΦH H
r Φr + Φt Φt = IM . (8) a special case of our model as summarized in Table I.
CW-FC architecture can achieve the best performance due to Remark 2. There are twofold differences between STAR-
the most general constraint (8). RIS/IOS [5], [6], [27], [28] and our proposed model. On
3) Cell-Wise Group-Connected (CW-GC) Architecture: It one hand, STAR-RIS/IOS, which is essentially the CW-SC
is obvious that when the number of cells M gets larger, the hybrid BD-RIS as shown in Table I, is a particular instance of
circuit topology of the CW-FC BD-RIS will become extremely the proposed model when there are no inter-cell connections.
complicated. To achieve a good trade-off between the RIS On the other hand, we go beyond the architecture of STAR-
performance and circuit complexity, we propose and design RIS/IOS and propose more general and flexible CW-GC/FC
a generalized BD-RIS architecture referred to as CW-GC architectures. The proposed CW-GC/WC architectures are
architecture. In the CW-GC BD-RIS, the M cells are divided built on the multi-port reconfigurable impedance network [7],
into G groups indexed by G = {1, . . . , G} with each group which cannot be derived based on the modeling of STAR-
of cells utilizing the CW-FC architecture. For simplicity, here RIS/IOS [5], [6], [27], [28] due to the lack of a rigorous
we assume that all groups have the same size M̄ = M/G, analysis using network theory.
and we define Gg , {(g − 1)M̄ + 1, . . . , g M̄ } as the set of
cell indexes for group g. An example of a 4-cell BD-RIS with Remark 3. Given that the RIS can be generally modeled as
CW-GC architecture having 2 groups is illustrated in Fig. 5(c). multiple antennas connected to a multi-port reconfigurable
It should be noted that there are various grouping strategies impedance network, the circuit topology of the reconfigurable
while exploring different kinds of grouping strategies is left as impedance network in STAR-RIS is essentially the same as that
future work. Thus, Φr , Φt are block diagonal matrices, which in the group-connected RIS with group size 2 [7]. To facilitate
are given by understanding, we provide a simple example in Fig. 6 to show
the equivalence in terms of circuit topologies between the CW-
Φr = blkdiag(Φr,1 , . . . , Φr,G ), SC 2-cell BD-RIS and group-connected 4-elements BD-RIS
(9)
Φt = blkdiag(Φt,1 , . . . , Φt,G ), with group size 2. The difference is that all the antennas of

where Φt/r,g ∈ CM̄ ×M̄ , ∀g ∈ G satisfies the constraint 5 Note that reflective/transmissive mode only is the special case of the hybrid
transmissive and reflective mode, and the hybrid mode can efficiently utilize
ΦH H
r,g Φr,g + Φt,g Φt,g = IM̄ , ∀g ∈ G. (10) the resources.

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2-Cell BD-RIS with Cell-Wise 4-Element RIS with Group- Define h̃k , (hH H
k Φi G) , ∀i ∈ {t, r}, ∀k ∈ Ki . Then
Single-Connected Architecture Connected Architecture the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) for each user
Group Size: 2

Antenna 1 Cell 1 Antenna 3 Antenna 1

Group 1 can be calculated as
Z1
Z1,3
Z3 Z1,2
Z1
|h̃H
k wk |
2
Z2
γk = P H 2
, ∀i ∈ {t, r}, ∀k ∈ Ki .
Antenna 2 2
p∈K,p6=k |h̃k wp | + σk
Antenna 2 Cell 2 Antenna 4 Group 2
(12)
Antenna 3
Z2,4 Z3
Our goal is to jointly design the transmit precoder and
Z2 Z4 Z3,4 BD-RIS matrix to maximize the sum-rate for the MU-MISO
Antenna 4 Z4
system, subject to power constraint and the BD-RIS constraint
(a) (b)
shown in Table I. Therefore, the problem is formulated as
X
Fig. 6. (a) 2-cell CW-SC BD-RIS and (b) 4-element group-connected RIS. max fo (W, Φt , Φr ) = log2 (1 + γk ) (13a)
W,Φt ,Φr
k∈K
s.t. Φt and Φr satisfy Table I, (13b)
the group-connected BD-RIS with group size 2 are placed in
the same direction, while antennas of the CW-SC BD-RIS are kWk2F ≤ P, (13c)
divided into two sectors and back to back placed. Therefore, where P is the total transmit power at the BS. Problem
intra-cell connection together with the antenna arrangements (13) is difficult to solve due to the complex form of the
supports “modes” while inter-cell connection refers to the objective and the non-convex constraints of the BD-RIS. To
“architectures” among different cells. tackle this difficulty, in the following subsections, we attempt
In the following section, we will focus on the beamforming to first transform problem (13) into a more tractable multi-
design for an BD-RIS-aided wireless communication system variable/block optimization based on fractional programming
to investigate and compare the nine cases of BD-RIS. theory and then iteratively cope with each block.

IV. J OINT T RANSMIT P RECODER AND BD-RIS M ATRIX B. Overview of the Joint Design Framework
D ESIGN We start by taking the fractional terms γk , ∀k ∈ K out of the
log(·) function in the original objective fo (W, Φt , Φr ). Based
A. Problem Formulation on the Lagrangian Dual Transform [30], [31], fo (W, Φt , Φr )
We consider an RIS-aided MU-MISO system with an can be equivalently transformed into the following form:
N -antenna base station (BS), an M -cell BD-RIS, and K X
single-antenna users (including Kr reflective users and Kt fι (W, Φt , Φr , ι) = log2 (1 + ιk ) − ιk
transmissive ones) based on Section II. In this section, we k∈K
have the following assumptions: i) We assume direct links ! (14)
(1 + ιk )|h̃H
k wk |
2
between the BS and users are blocked so that there are only +P H 2
,
2
BS-RIS-user links6 . ii) We assume exact and instantaneous p∈K |h̃k wp | + σk
channel state information (CSI) is available at the BS, and our
where ι , [ι1 , . . . , ιK ]T ∈ RK is an auxiliary vector. It
proposed design provides an upper bound on the performance
can be seen from (14) that we remove the original fractional
of practical systems.
terms in the log(·) function of fo (W, Φt , Φr ), but introduce
Let s , [s1 , . . . , sK ]T ∈ CK be the transmit symbol vector, a summation of new fractional terms. The main difference is
E{ssH } = IK . Transmit symbols are first precoded at the BS that these new fractional terms are independent of the log(·)
by a precoder matrix W , [w1 , . . . , wK ] ∈ CN ×K , where function and thus more tractable. Then we can apply Quadratic
wk ∈ CN is the precoding vector for user k, ∀k ∈ K. Then Transform [30], [31] to transform these fractional parts into
they are up-converted to the radio frequency (RF) domain integral expressions and reformulate the objective function
via N RF chains. After propagating through the RIS-aided fι (W, Φt , Φr , ι) as:
channels, signals are corrupted by additive Gaussian white X
noise (AGWN). Thus, the received signal for each user is fτ (W, Φt , Φr , ι, τ ) = log2 (1 + ιk ) − ιk
k∈K
yk =hH
k Φi GWs + nk , √ X 
X +2 1+ ιk <{τk∗ h̃H
k wk } − |τk |2 |h̃H 2 2
k wp | + σ k ,
=hH H
k Φi Gwk sk + hk Φi G wp sp (11) p∈K
p∈K,p6=k (15)
+ nk , ∀i ∈ {t, r}, ∀k ∈ Ki , where τ , [τ1 , . . . , τK ]T ∈ CK denotes another auxiliary
vector. Now with newly introduced two auxiliary vectors ι
where hk ∈ CM denotes the channel vector between the RIS and τ , the original problem (13) can be transformed into:
and user k, and nk ∼ CN (0, σk2 ) denotes the AGWN, ∀k ∈ K.
max fτ (W, Φt , Φr , ι, τ ) (16a)
W,Φt ,Φr ,ι,τ
6 Hereinwe ignore direct links for simplicity. However, our proposed
algorithms still work if the direct link exists. s.t. (13b), (13c). (16b)

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Algorithm 1 Joint Transmit Precoder and BD-RIS Design Then by checking the first-order optimum condition, we can
Input: hi,k , ∀i ∈ {t, r}, ∀k ∈ Ki , G, P . obtain the optimal solution of precoder W:
Output: Φ?t , Φ?r , W? .  −1
1: Initialize Φt , Φr , W, D1 , . . . , DG . X √
2: while no convergence of objective (13a) do wk? =  h̄p h̄H ?
p + λ IN
 × 1 + ιk h̄k , ∀k ∈ K, (20)
3: Update ι? by (17) in Section IV-C. p∈K
4: Update τ ? by (18) in Section IV-C.
5: Update W? by (20) in Section IV-D. where λ? can be obtained by a simple bisection search.
6: Update Φ?t/r by solving problem (21) in Section IV-E.
7: end while
8: Return Φ? ?
t/r , W . E. BD-RIS Matrix: Block {Φt , Φr }
When W, τ , and ι are determined, the sub-problem with
respect to Φt and Φr is written as
Problem (16) is a typical multi-variable/block problem. A
X X X 
well-known direction is to solve it based on block coordinate 2<{τ̃k∗ hH 2
|hH 2
max k Φi gk } − |τk | k Φi gp |
descent (BCD) iterative algorithms [32]. Given appropriate Φt ,Φr
i∈{t,r} k∈Ki p∈K
initial values of W and Φt/r , we iteratively update the (21a)
above blocks until convergence. The proposed joint design
s.t. Φt and Φr satisfy Table I, (21b)
framework is summarized in Algorithm 1.
In the following subsections, we will decompose problem √
where τ̃k = 1 + ιk τk , gk , Gwk , ∀k ∈ K. It can be
(16) into several sub-problems in an iterative manner and easily observed from Table I that both CW-SC and CW-FC
discuss the solution for each block in detail. Specifically, architectures are special cases of the CW-GC architecture.
solutions to two auxiliary vectors, i.e., blocks ι and τ , will be Therefore, in the following section, we will first provide a
presented in Section IV-C. Then, the solution to the transmit general solution for the CW-GC case, which can easily boil
precoder, i.e., block W, will be provided in Section IV-D. down to other cases, and then propose an efficient algorithm
Finally, the solution to the BD-RIS beamformer, i.e., block for the CW-SC case to further reduce the complexity.
{Φt , Φr }, will be discussed in Section IV-E.
1) A General Solution for CW-GC BD-RIS: Problem (21)
can be written as
C. Auxiliary Vectors: Blocks ι and τ X  
max 2<{Tr(Φi Xi )} − Tr(Φi YΦHi Zi ) (22a)
When W, Φt , Φr , and τ (or ι) are fixed, the sub- Φt ,Φr
i∈{t,r}
problem with respect to ι (or τ ) is an unconstrained convex
s.t. ΦH H
t,g Φt,g + Φr,g Φr,g = IM̄ , ∀g ∈ G, (22b)
optimization, whose solution can be easily derived by setting
∂fτ (W,Φt ,Φr ,ι,τ )
= 0 (or ∂fτ (W,Φt ,Φr ,ι,τ )
= 0). Then we Φi = blkdiag(Φi,1 , . . . , Φi,G ), ∀i ∈ {t, r}, (22c)
∂ι ∂τ
can obtain the following optimal solutions for each auxiliary
variables ιk and τk as: where Xi ∈ CM ×M , Y ∈ CM ×M P, and Z i ∈ C
M ×M
∗ H
are respectively defined as Xi , k∈Ki τ̃k gk hk , Y ,
ι?k = γk , ∀k ∈ K, H 2 H
P P
(17) p∈K g p gp , and Z i , k∈Ki |τ k | hk hk , ∀i ∈ {t, r}. It

√ is worth noting that there are quadratic terms in problem (22),

1 + ιk h̃H
k wk which makes different groups of Φt/r,g mingle with each
τk? =P , ∀k ∈ K. (18)
H 2 2 other. To efficiently solve this problem, we attempt to split out
p∈K |h̃k wp | + σk
one pair Φt,g and Φr,g for group g from the objective function
with fixed other pairs, and focus on the design of each pair.
D. Transmit Precoder: Block W To this end, we first split objective (22a) group-by-group as:
With given Φt , Φr , τ , and ι, the sub-problem with respect X  
to W is given by: 2<{Tr(Φi Xi )} − Tr(Φi YΦH i Zi )
i∈{t,r}
X √ X  
max 2 1 + ιk <{h̄H k w k } − w H
k h̄p h̄H
p wk X G
X
W = 2 <{Tr(Φi,q Xi,q )}
k∈K p∈K (23)
(19a) i∈{t,r} q=1
!!
s.t. kWk2F ≤ P, (19b) G
X G
X
− Tr Φi,p Yp,q ΦH
i,q Zi,q,p ,
where h̄k , τk h̃k , ∀k ∈ K. Since both the objective func- p=1 q=1

tion and the constraint of problem (19) are convex, we can

use some classical optimization methods to find its optimal where Xi,q = [Xi ](q−1)M̄ +1:qM̄ ,(q−1)M̄ +1:qM̄ ∈ CM̄ ×M̄ ,
solution. Here we adopt the Lagrange multiplier method and Yp,q = [Y](p−1)M̄ +1:pM̄ ,(q−1)M̄ +1:qM̄ ∈ CM̄ ×M̄ , and
introduce a multiplier λ ≥ 0 for the power constraint (19b). Zi,q,p = [Zi ](q−1)M̄ +1:qM̄ ,(p−1)M̄ +1:pM̄ ∈ CM̄ ×M̄ , ∀p, q ∈ G.

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Then, when we focus on one pair Φt,g and Φr,g with fixed Riemannian Gradient: In the CG method, the Euclidean
other pairs, the corresponding sub-objective function is: gradient is required to calculate the Riemannian gradient.
Therefore, we first calculate the Euclidean gradient of f˜g (Φg ):
X
fg (Φt,g , Φr,g ) = Tr(Φi,g Yg,g ΦH
i,g Zi,g,g ) Of˜g (Φg ) = 2Zg Φg Yg − 2XH
g , ∀g ∈ G. (29)
i∈{t,r}
! Then the Riemannian gradient can be calculated by projecting
n  X
H

o (24) the Euclidean gradient onto the tangent space [33]:
− 2< Tr Φi,g Xi,g − Yg,p Φi,p Zi,p,g .
p6=g OMg f˜g (Φg ) = PrΦg (Of˜g (Φg ))
| {z } (30)
=X̃i,g =Of˜g (Φg ) − Φg chdiag(ΦH ˜
g Ofg (Φg )), ∀g ∈ G,

Define matrices Φg , [ΦH H H

∈ C2M̄ ×M̄ , X̃g , where PrΦg (·) denotes the projection function, and chdiag(·)
t,g , Φr,g ]
[X̃t,g , X̃r,g ] ∈ C M̄ ×2M̄
, and Zg , blkdiag(Zt,g,g , Zr,g,g ) ∈ chooses all diagonal elements of a matrix to construct a
C2M̄ ×2M̄ . Then the sub-problem with respect to Φg is: diagonal matrix. Now we can apply the CG method. At the
v-th iteration of the CG method, we successively do the
min f˜g (Φg ) = Tr(Φg Yg,g ΦH
g Zg − 2<{Φg X̃g }) (25a) following steps:
Φg
S1: Find the descent direction:
s.t. ΦH
g Φg = IM̄ , ∀g ∈ G. (25b)
Ξvg = −OMg f˜g (Φvg ) + µvg PrΦvg (Ξv−1
g ), ∀g ∈ G, (31)
The main challenge of solving problem (25) is the unitary
where µvg denotes the CG update parameter. There are
constraint (25b). One possible solution is to do some relax-
many choices for updating this parameter, e.g., Fletcher-
ations and solve the relaxed problem. However, it is inevitable
Reeves formula, Polak-Ribière formula, and Hestenes-
that there will be performance loss since the result is not based
Stiefel formula [35]. Here we adopt a Riemannian version
on the original problem. Moreover, when the value of Φg is
of the Polak-Ribière formula, which is given by
not that “good”, the convergence of the overall BCD procedure n 
might not be guaranteed. In order to get a “good” solution µvg =< Tr [OMg f˜g (Φvg )]H OMg f˜g (Φvg )

of problem (25), we adopt a manifold algorithm [33], whose o
main idea is to construct all available solutions of the problem − PrΦvg (OMg f˜g (Φv−1
g )) /
as a manifold, and then transform the original constrained  
problem on the Euclidean space into an unconstrained one on Tr [OMg f˜g (Φv−1
g )]H OMg f˜g (Φv−1
g ) , ∀g ∈ G.
the manifold space. Then many algorithms on the Euclidean (32)
space, e.g., Trust-Region (TR), Conjugate-Gradient (CG), and S2: Perform a retraction [33]:
Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS) methods [34], can Φv+1 = RetrΦvg (δgv Ξvg )
g
be easily extended to the manifold space with some necessary
projections. In the following we will introduce the procedure =(Φvg + δgv Ξvg )(IM̄ + (δgv )2 (Ξvg )H Ξvg )−1/2 , ∀g ∈ G,
(33)
of the manifold algorithm by applying the CG method.
where δgv is the step size and can be searched by back-
Manifold Construction: Constraint (25b) forms a 2M̄ 2 -
tracking algorithms [33]. RetrΦvg (·) denotes the retraction
dimensional complex Stiefel manifold [34], i.e.,
function which maps a point in the tangent space into the
Mg = {Φg ∈ C2M̄ ×M̄ : ΦH manifold.
g Φg = IM̄ }, ∀g ∈ G, (26)
Now with proper initial values, the (at least local) optimal
and then problem (25) becomes an unconstrained optimization Φ?g , ∀g can be obtained by iteratively updating δgv−1 , Φvg , µvg ,
on the Stiefel manifold, i.e., and Ξvg until convergence. After solving problem (25) for all
groups, the optimal reflective and transmissive matrices for
Φ?g = arg min f˜g (Φg ), ∀g ∈ G. (27) each group can be split from Φ?g , i.e.,
Φg ∈Mg

Φ?t,g = [Φ?g ]1:M̄ ,: , ∀g ∈ G,

Here we should explain that a manifold is a topological (34)
space which “locally” resembles the Euclidean space. To be Φ?r,g = [Φ?g ]M̄ +1:2M̄ ,: , ∀g ∈ G.
specific, the moving direction of a point on the manifold is The procedure of the above BD-RIS matrix design is summa-
referred to as a tangent vector. All these tangent vectors at rized in Algorithm 2.
this point, which include all possible directions this point can
move to, form the tangent space. Each tangent space can be Remark 4. The proposed general solution is also suitable for
regarded as a Euclidean space which has one tangent vector, CW-FC and CW-SC cases:
namely, Riemannian gradient, pointing to the direction that the C1: For the CW-FC case (G = 1), problem (21) can be
objective function decreases fastest [33]. The tangent space of rewritten as the following form:
the manifold (26) at point Φg is given as H
min Tr(ΦYΦ Z) − 2<{Tr(ΦX)} (35a)
2M̄ ×M̄ Φ
TΦg Mg = {Tg ∈ C : <{ΦH
g Tg } = 0M̄ }, ∀g ∈ G. H
(28) s.t. Φ Φ = IM , (35b)

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Algorithm 2 General Solution for CW-GC BD-RIS Algorithm 3 Efficient Solution for CW-SC BD-RIS
Input: hi,k , ∀i ∈ {t, r}, ∀k ∈ Ki , G, ι, τ , W, Φt , Φr , G. Input: hi,k , ∀i ∈ {t, r}, ∀k ∈ Ki , G, ι, τ , W, Φt , Φr .
Output: Φ?t , Φ?r . Output: Φ?t , Φ?r .
1: Calculate Xt/r , Y, Zt/r . 1: Calculate Vt/r and ṽt/r .
2: Initialize Φ0 = [ΦH H H
t , Φr ] . 2: while no convergence of Φt , Φr do
3: Initialize Ξ0g = −OMg f˜g (Φ0g ), ∀g ∈ G. 3: for m = 1 : M do
?
4: while no convergence of Φt , Φr do 4: Update θt/r,m by (39).
?
5: for g = 1 : G do 5: Update αt,m by golden-section search.
6: Set v = 0. 6: Calculate φ?t/r,m by (41).
7: while no convergence of kOMg f˜g (Φvg )kF do 7: end for
8: v = v + 1. 8: end while
9: Calculate δgv−1 by backtracking algorithms [33]. 9: Return Φ? ? ?
t/r = diag(φt/r,M , . . . , φt/r,M ).
10: Update Φvg by (33).
11: Update µvg by (32).
12: Update Ξvg by (31). √
Recall φi,m = αi,m eθi,m , ∀i ∈ {t, r}, ∀m ∈ M, the sub-
13: end while problem for φt,m , and φr,m is
14: Obtain Φ?g = Φv+1 g .
Obtain Φ?t/r,g by (34).
X 
15: min [Vi ]m,m αi,m (38a)
α ,α
16: end for t,m r,m
θt,m ,θr,m i∈{t,r}
17: end while √ 
18: Return Φ? + 2|χi,m | αi,m cos(∠χi,m − θi,m ) (38b)
t/r by (9).
s.t. αt,m + αr,m = 1, (38c)
θt,m ∈ [0, 2π), θr,m ∈ [0, 2π). (38d)
where Φ , [ΦH H H
t , Φr ] ∈ C2M ×M , X , [Xt , Xr ] ∈
C M ×2M
, and Z , blkdiag(Zt , Zr ) ∈ C2M ×2M . This Phase Shift: From problem (38) we can observe that
problem can be solved by steps 6-15 in Algorithm 2. the phase shifts θt/r,m and amplitudes αt/r,m can be sep-
C2: CW-SC RIS matrix can be directly determined by Al- arately determined. Therefore, we first directly let the term
gorithm 2 with G = M . However, CW-SC RIS has a cos(∠χi,m − θi,m ) = −1 to minimize the objective function.
friendly characteristic, i.e., Φt/r are diagonal matrices, Then we can determine the optimal phase shifts:
which can facilitate the design. Therefore, we propose (
? ∠χi,m + π, ∠χi,m ∈ [0, π),
a more efficient algorithm for the CW-SC case, which θi,m =
achieves a similar performance but has lower computa- ∠χi,m − π, ∠χi,m ∈ [π, 2π), (39)
tional complexity compared to Algorithm 2. ∀i ∈ {t, r}, ∀m ∈ M.
2) An Efficient Solution for CW-SC BD-RIS: In this case, Amplitude: With optimal phase shifts, objective (38a) be-
each non-zero element of Φt/r can be modeled as φt/r,m = comes a real-value optimization and problem (38) can be
√
αt/r,m eθt/r,m , θt/r,m ∈ [0, 2π), αt,m + αr,m = 1, formulated as a function of αt,m :
∀m ∈ M [5]. Define φi , [φi,1 , . . . , φi,M ]T , and vk,p , √ p
(hH H min υm αt,m − 2|χt,m | αt,m − 2|χr,m | 1 − αt,m (40a)
k diag(gp )) , ∀p ∈ K, ∀k ∈ Ki , ∀i ∈ {t, r}. Problem (21) αt,m
can be rewritten as s.t. αt,m ∈ (0, 1), (40b)
X  
max 2<{ṽiH φi } − φH
i Vi φi (36a) where υm = [Vt ]m,m − [Vr ]m,m , ∀m ∈ M. It can be proved
φt ,φr
i∈{t,r} that objective (40a) is a convex function with αt,m ∈ (0, 1)
s.t. |φt,m |2 + |φr,m |2 = 1, ∀m ∈ M, (36b) (the proof of the convexity of objective (40a) is provided in
the Appendix). Therefore, the minimum of problem (40) is
2 H
P P
with Vi , k∈Ki |τk | p∈K vk,p vk,p , and ṽi , achieved at the minimum point. Although we cannot get a
√
close-form solution due to the complicated form of objective
P
k∈Ki 1 + ι v τ
k k,k k , ∀i ∈ {t, r}. We split the objective and
focus on the design for one pair, i.e., φt,m , φr,m , while fixing (40a), we can apply efficient one-dimensional search methods,
the others. Therefore, the sub-objective for φt,m , and φr,m is e.g., golden-section search, to find the minimum point.
given by After solving problem (40) and getting the optimal ampli-
?
tude αt,m , we can obtain φ?t/r,m as:
X
[Vi ]m,m |φi,m |2
q ?
φ?t,m = αt,m? eθt,m , ∀m ∈ M,
i∈{t,r} q (41)
?
φ?r,m = 1 − αt,m ? eθr,m , ∀m ∈ M.
!
n X  o (37)
+ 2< [Vi ]m,n φi,n − [ṽi ]m φ∗i,m .
n6=m The details of the single-connected RIS beamforming design
are summarized in Algorithm 3.
| {z }
=χi,m

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16 10
H. Complexity Analysis
9
14
8 In this subsection, we provide a broad complexity analysis
12
7 for algorithms proposed in the previous section. As shown

Sum-rate(b/s/Hz)
Sum-rate(b/s/Hz)

10 6
in Algorithm 1, four blocks are iteratively updated to find a
8 5
convergent solution. In each iteration, updating blocks ι and
τ require O{K 2 M 2 } operations; updating block W has a
4
6
CW-FC
3 CW-FC

complexity of approximately O{K(M 2 + Ibs N 3 )}, where Ibs

CW-GC
CW-GC
4 CW-SC, Algorithm 2
CW-SC, Algorithm 2
CW-SC, Algorithm 3 2
CW-SC, Algorithm 3

2 1
is the number of iterations for bisection search. The complexity
5 10 15 20 25 30 5 10 15 20 25 30
Number of iterations Number of iterations of the proposed two algorithms for designing block Φt , Φr
(a) Rayleigh fading (b) Rician fading will be discussed as follows.
1) The General Solution for CW-GC BD-RIS: As summa-
Fig. 7. Sum-rate versus the number of iterations (P = 5 dBm, G = 8,
N = K = 6, Kt = Kr = 3, M = 64).
rized in Algorithm 2, the optimization of CW-GC BD-RIS is
based on an iterative design. In each iteration, the objective
is divided into G sub-problems, each of which is solved by a
F. Initialization manifold version of the CG method (steps 7-13 in Algorithm
2) with complexity O{Icg M̄ 3 }, where Icg denotes the number
Choosing an appropriate initialization of BD-RIS coeffi- of iterations for the CG method. Therefore, calculating CW-
cients Φt , Φr and transmit beamformer W is important for GC BD-RIS requires O{Igc Icg GM̄ 3 } operations, where Igc
the proposed Algorithm 1. Unfortunately, it is not that easy denotes the number of iterations for Algorithm 2. The overall
to quickly find different and good initial values of Φt , Φr complexity is O{I(K 2 M 2 + Ibs KN 3 + Igc Icg GM̄ 3 )}, where
satisfying different modes/connections. Therefore, we simply I denotes the number of iterations in Algorithm 1. Since CW-
adopt CW-SC cases and assume initial Φt , Φr are all diagonal FC and CW-SC BD-RIS are special cases of CW-GC ones,
matrices, i.e., Φt/r = diag(φt/r,1 , . . . , φt/r,M ). Each non-zero we can easily derive the corresponding complexity as follows:
element has constant amplitude √12 and random phase shift
C1: For the CW-FC case, i.e., G = 1, there is no need to do
within the range [0, 2π).
iterations for BD-RIS design so that the complexity of
Then with the above initial BD-RIS coefficients, we use
updating BD-RIS beamformer is O{Icg M 3 }. The overall
a typical minimum mean square error (MMSE) precoder to
complexity is thus O{I(K 2 M 2 + Ibs KN 3 + Icg M 3 )}.
initialize W, which is given by
C2: For the CW-SC case, i.e., G = M , optimizing BD-
W̃ = (GH ΦH HHH ΦG + σ 2 IN )−1 GH ΦH H, (42) RIS requires O{Igc Icg M }. And the overall complexity
is O{I(K 2 M 2 + Ibs KN 3 + Igc Icg M )}.
where Φ = [ΦH H H
t , Φr ] , H = blkdiag(Ht , Hr ) with Ht/r = 2) The Efficient Solution for CW-SC BD-RIS: Updating
[ht/r,1 , . . . , ht/r,Kt/r ], σi,k = σ, ∀i ∈ {t, r}, ∀k ∈ Ki . Finally, {Φt , Φr } by Algorithm 3 requires O{Isc M } operations,
an additional normalization √ is performed to satisfy the power where Isc denotes the number of iterations. Thus, the com-
P W̃ plexity for joint transmit beamformer and CW-SC BD-RIS
constraint, i.e., W = kW̃k .
F
matrix design is O{I(K 2 M 2 + Ibs KN 3 + Isc M )}.
To summarize, different architectures have different circuit
G. Convergence Analysis topologies, which require different numbers of reconfigurable
The convergence of the proposed Algorithm 1 cannot be impedance components. Therefore, mathematically Φt and
strictly proved, since the update of block {Φt , Φr } has Φr have different numbers of non-zero elements related to
no guarantee of global optimum. Fortunately, since the up- the number of cells M and groups G, yielding different
date of the remaining blocks (steps 3-5 in Algorithm 1) is complexity for beamforming design. To provide a clear com-
monotonous, the loss induced by updating block {Φt , Φr } is parison, we summarize the circuit topology complexity and
negligible. Although we cannot provide a rigorous theoretical optimization complexity for different architectures in Table II,
proof for the convergence of Algorithm 1, we evaluate the con- showing that the performance improvement (as illustrated in
vergence performance by simulations. Simulation results for the next section) of cell-wise group/fully-connected BD-RIS
the proposed algorithms are shown in Fig. 7. In Fig. 7, schemes is at the expense of higher circuit topology complexity and
“CW-FC”, “CW-GC”, and “CW-SC, Algorithm 2” are plotted optimization complexity.
based on Algorithms 2 and 1, while “CW-SC, Algorithm 3”
is plotted based on Algorithms 3 and 1. From Fig. 7 we can V. P ERFORMANCE E VALUATION
observe that our proposed solutions always converge within In this section, we present simulation results to demonstrate
limited iterations under different channel realizations, e.g., the performance of the BD-RIS-aided MU-MISO system when
Rayleigh fading and Rician fading channels. These simulation the BD-RIS has nine different modes/architectures. We model
results demonstrate the robustness of our proposed algorithms. the channels from the BS to the RIS and from the RIS to users
Moreover, our proposed efficient solution for CW-SC BD-RIS, as a combination of small-scale and large-scale fading in ac-
i.e. “CW-SC, Algorithm 3”, has a similar performance to “CW- cordance with existing RIS works [9], [13], [36]. Specifically,
SC, Algorithm 2”, but with a lower complexity (which will the distance-dependent pathloss model P Li = ζ0 (di /d0 )−εi ,
be discussed in the following subsection). ∀i ∈ {BI, IU} [9], [13] accounts for the large-scale fading with

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TABLE II
T HE C IRCUIT T OPOLOGY C OMPLEXITY AND OVERALL O PTIMIZATION C OMPLEXITY FOR BD-RIS WITH D IFFERENT A RCHITECTURES

Number of Number of Circuit Topology

Architecture Group Size Optimization Complexity
Groups Non-zero Elements Complexity
O{I(K 2 M 2 + Ibs KN 3 + Igc Icg M )} by Algorithm 2
CW-SC M 1 2M 3M
O{I(K 2 M 2 + Ibs KN 3 + Isc M )} by Algorithm 3
CW-GC G M̄ 2GM̄ 2 M (2M̄ + 1) O{I(K 2 M 2 + Ibs KN 3 + Igc Icg GM̄ 3 )}
CW-FC 1 M 2M 2 M (2M + 1) O{I(K 2 M 2 + Ibs KN 3 + Igc Icg M 3 )}

11
Hybrid, CW-FC
10 Hybrid, CW-GC
dIU Hybrid, CW-SC
dBI 9 Transmissive, CW-FC
Transmissive, CW-GC
8 Transmissive, CW-SC
Reflective, CW-FC

Sum-rate(b/s/Hz)
7 Reflective, CW-GC
Reflective, CW-SC
BS RIS Transmissive User Reflective User 6

4
Fig. 8. An illustration of the relative position among the BS, RIS, and users.
3

2
ζ0 referring to the signal attenuation at a reference distance
1
d0 , dBI and dIU referring to the distance between the BS and 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
the RIS, and between the RIS and users, and εi , ∀i ∈ {BI, IU} P(dBm)

referring to the path loss exponent. Regarding the small-scale (a) Rayleigh fading
fading, we use both Rayleigh fading and Rician fading models 8
Hybrid, CW-FC
[9], [13], [36] with κi , ∀i ∈ {BI, IU} referring to the Rician Hybrid, CW-GC
factor. In the following simulations, we fix the Rician factor 7
Hybrid, CW-SC
Transmissive, CW-FC
for Rician fading channels to κBI = κIU = 5 dB for BS-RIS Transmissive, CW-GC
and RIS-user links. The signal attenuation is set as ζ0 = −30 6
Transmissive, CW-SC
Reflective, CW-FC
Sum-rate(b/s/Hz)

dB at a reference distance d0 = 1 m for all channels. The Reflective, CW-GC

Reflective, CW-SC
path loss exponent of BS-RIS and RIS-user channels are all
5
set as εBI = εIU = 2.2. The noise power at each user is set as
σk2 = −80 dBm, ∀i ∈ {t, r}, ∀k ∈ Ki . The relative position
4
among the BS, BD-RIS, and users is shown in Fig. 8, where
the distance between the BS and the RIS is set as dBI = 50
3
m, and K users are randomly located close to the RIS with
the same distance dIU = 2.5 m.
Now we examine the sum-rate performance of the BD-RIS- 2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
aided MU-MISO system when BD-RIS has different modes7 P(dBm)
and architectures8 . Fig. 9 shows the sum-rate performance (b) Rician fading
versus the transmit power. From Fig. 9 we can obtain the
following conclusions: i) With the same architecture, the Fig. 9. Sum-rate versus transmit power P (N = K = 4, Kt = Kr = 2,
M = 32, G = 8).
“hybrid” scheme can outperform other modes. For example,
for Rician fading channels, the “hybrid, CW-FC” scheme
can achieve around 20% higher sum-rate than “Transmis- best sum-rate performance. For example, for Rayleigh fading
sive/Reflective, CW-FC” schemes. This is because the hybrid channels, the sum-rate of “hybrid, CW-FC” and “hybrid, CW-
BD-RIS can fully utilize the multiuser diversity, while part of GC” schemes is around 75% and 37% higher than that of
users are blocked under other modes. Therefore, the “hybrid” the “hybrid, CW-SC” scheme. iii) When the transmit power is
scheme can realize a full-dimensional service coverage, which relatively small (the sum-rate performance is more related to
indicates that the scope of application for hybrid RISs can the BD-RIS matrix than to the BS precoder), with the same
be much more flexible than “transmissive/reflective” ones. ii) inter-cell architecture, the performance gap between the hybrid
Under the same mode, the “full” scheme always achieves the RIS and transmissive/reflective RIS for Rician fading channels
is larger than that for Rayleigh fading channels. It is because
7 We can easily obtain the RIS beamformer under the reflective (trans-
in Rician fading channels with strong LoS components, two
missive) mode based on the proposed algorithms by removing transmissive separate beams of the hybrid BD-RIS can be “sharper” to
(reflective) users and forcing Φt (Φr ) to zero.
8 In the following simulations, CW-SC BD-RIS beamformer is designed by finely direct to users from different sides. Therefore, hybrid
Algorithm 3. RISs are more suitable in Rician fading environments. iv)

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8 8
16 7.5 7.5
Hybrid, CW-FC 7 K=5 7
K=5
Hybrid, CW-GC 6.5 6.5
14 Hybrid, CW-SC

Sum-rate(b/s/Hz)

Sum-rate(b/s/Hz)
6 6
Transmissive, CW-FC 5.5 5.5
Transmissive, CW-GC 5 5
12 Transmissive, CW-SC 4.5 4.5
Reflective, CW-FC
Sum-rate(b/s/Hz)

4 4
Hybrid, CW-FC Hybrid, CW-FC
Reflective, CW-GC 3.5
Hybrid, CW-GC Transmissive, CW-SC
3.5 Hybrid, CW-GC
Transmissive, CW-SC
Reflective, CW-FC
Reflective, CW-FC
10 Reflective, CW-SC
Hybrid, CW-SC
Transmissive, CW-FC Reflective, CW-GC
Hybrid, CW-SC
Transmissive, CW-FC
Reflective, CW-GC
3 3 Reflective, CW-SC
Transmissive, CW-GC Reflective, CW-SC Transmissive, CW-GC
2.5 2.5
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Number of transmissive users Kt Number of reflective users Kr
8
(a) Rayleigh fading (Kr = 2) (b) Rayleigh fading (Kt = 2)
6 7 7

6.5 6.5

6 6
4 K=5 K=5

Sum-rate(b/s/Hz)

Sum-rate(b/s/Hz)
5.5 5.5

5 5
2
20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 4.5 4.5

Number of Cells M 4 Hybrid, CW-FC 4 Hybrid, CW-FC

Hybrid, CW-GC Transmissive, CW-SC Transmissive, CW-SC
Hybrid, CW-GC
Hybrid, CW-SC Reflective, CW-FC Reflective, CW-FC
Hybrid, CW-SC
(a) Rayleigh fading 3.5 Transmissive, CW-FC
Transmissive, CW-GC
Reflective, CW-GC
Reflective, CW-SC
3.5
Transmissive, CW-FC
Transmissive, CW-GC
Reflective, CW-GC
Reflective, CW-SC

3 3
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
10 Number of transmissive users Kt Number of reflective users Kr
Hybrid, CW-FC
Hybrid, CW-GC (c) Rician fading (Kr = 2) (d) Rician fading (Kt = 2)
9 Hybrid, CW-SC
Transmissive, CW-FC
Transmissive, CW-GC Fig. 11. (a), (c): Sum-rate versus the number of transmissive users; (b), (d):
8
Transmissive, CW-SC Sum-rate versus the number of reflective users (M = 32, N = 8, P = 5
Reflective, CW-FC dBm, G = 8).
Sum-rate(b/s/Hz)

7 Reflective, CW-GC
Reflective, CW-SC

6 With the growth of the number of transmissive/reflective users,

the performance gap between the “hybrid” scheme and the
5
“transmissive/reflective” one becomes smaller. iii) When the
4 number of total users the BS can simultaneously serve is fixed,
e.g., circled points in Figs. 11(a)-11(d), the “hybrid” scheme
3 still achieves better performance than “reflective/transmissive”
2
schemes. This phenomenon can be explained as follows. For
20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 the “hybrid” scheme, there are two different beams directing
Number of Cells M
to users from two sides, while for the “reflective/transmissive”
(b) Rician fading scheme, all the users share the same beam. More specifically,
Fig. 10. Sum-rate versus the number of RIS cells M (N = K = 6, Kt = the “reflective/transmissive” scheme can be regarded as special
Kr = 3, G = 8, P = 5 dBm). cases of the “hybrid” scheme (according to the mathematical
constraint summarized in Table I), which can realize more
When RISs are under the same mode (in low transmit power flexible beam control.
case), the performance gap between CW-FC/GC RISs and
CW-SC ones for Rayleigh fading channels is larger than that VI. C ONCLUSION AND F UTURE W ORK
for Rician fading channels. This fact shows that the advantage In this paper, we analyze and propose a general BD-RIS-
of CW-FC/GC RIS is more prominent in Rayleigh fading aided communication model unifying three modes, namely,
propagations, therefore confirming results in [7]. reflective, transmissive, and hybrid, and three architectures,
Then in Fig. 10, we plot sum-rate as a function of the namely, CW-SC, CW-GC, and CW-FC architectures, totally
number of cells M . It can be observed from Fig. 10 that nine cases. Particularly, we first prove that the STAR-RIS
the sum-rate for all schemes grows with the increase of M . (hybrid CW-SC RIS) is a special case of our proposed model.
More importantly, the slope of the sum-rate-versus-M curve Then we go beyond STAR-RIS and propose more flexible CW-
for CW-FC/GC BD-RIS is larger than that for CW-SC BD- GC/FC architectures.
RIS. This phenomenon can be explained by Table II, which With the proposed model, we consider the joint transmit
demonstrates that the number of non-zero elements grows in a precoder and BD-RIS matrix design to maximize the sum-
quadratic manner with increasing M for CW-FC/GC BD-RIS, rate for an RIS-aided MU-MISO system. We first transform
but grows linearly for CW-SC case: The more the number of the original problem into a multi-block optimization based
non-zero elements, the higher the beam control flexibility. on fractional programming theory. For the design of BD-RIS
Finally, in Figs. 11(a), 11(c) and Figs. 11(b), 11(d), we plot block, we propose a general algorithm, which is suitable for
sum-rate versus the number of transmissive and reflective users different architectures, and an efficient algorithm specifically
under different channel fadings. From Figs. 11(a)-11(d) we for CW-SC BD-RIS.
have the following observations: i) With the same architec- Finally, we provide a comprehensive comparison for BD-
ture and same numbers of transmissive/reflective users, the RIS with nine modes/architectures. Simulation results show
“hybrid” scheme can always outperform its competitors. ii) that under specific parameter settings and channel conditions,

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CW-FC and CW-GC hybrid BD-RISs can achieve around 75% range x ∈ (0, 1). Therefore, we can derive that
and 37% higher sum-rate performance than CW-SC hybrid z̄(x) has the same trend as Oz̄(x) for x ∈ (0, 1).
BD-RISs. Meanwhile, using CW-FC hybrid BD-RISs can To summarize, z̄(x) is a convex function with only one
improve the sum-rate performance by around 20% compared minimum point for x ∈ (0, 1), which completes the proof.
with using CW-FC transmissive/reflective ones.
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content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TWC.2022.3210706

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single, group, and fully connected discrete-value impedance networks,” jing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing,
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B. Clerckx, and L. Hanzo, “Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces relying University of Science and Technology (HKUST),
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H. V. Poor, and L. Song, “Intelligent omni-surfaces for full-dimensional Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA, in
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configurable intelligent surfaces for indoor and outdoor applications College London, London, U.K. He received the
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vol. 69, no. 2, pp. 1290–1301, 2020. exceptional work contributing to the progress of
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Qiu, “Transmission–reflection-selective metasurface and its application multiple awards from Samsung, IEEE best student
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