Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces for 6G: Emerging Hardware Architectures, Applications, and Open Challenges

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) are rapidly gaining prominence in the realm of 5G-advanced and predominantly 6G mobile networks, offering a revolutionary approach to optimizing wireless communications. This article delves into the intricate world of the RIS technology, exploring its diverse hardware architectures and the resulting versatile operating modes. These include RISs with signal reception and processing units, sensors, amplification units, transmissive capability, multiple stacked components, and dynamic metasurface antennas (DMAs). Furthermore, we shed light on emerging RIS applications, such as index and reflection modulation, noncoherent modulation, next-generation multiple access (NGMA), integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), energy harvesting (EH), as well as aerial and vehicular networks. These exciting applications are set to transform the way we will wirelessly connect in the upcoming era of 6G. Finally, we review recent experimental RIS setups and present various open problems of the overviewed RIS hardware architectures and their applications. From enhancing network coverage to enabling new communication paradigms, RIS-empowered connectivity is poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of wireless networking. This article unveils the underlying principles and potential impacts of RISs, focusing on cutting-edge developments of this physical-layer smart connectivity technology.