Abstract:

As a representative of new-quality productive forces, the low-altitude economy has achieved rapidly development relying on new-form applications such as civil unmanned aerial vehicles and low-altitude manned aircraft, and has gradually become a new engine driving China’s economic growth. With the continuous advancement of 5G-A technology, to meet the demand of low-altitude mobile users for continuous, high-quality, and deep coverage, building an air-ground integrated three-dimensional network based on International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) networks boasts advantages such as reuse of site resources and frequency resources, as well as high efficiency in integrated network construction and operation. However, traditional IMT networks mainly focuses on terrestrial users, with limited research on high-quality continuous coverage networking in low-altitude scenarios and mobility management for air-ground users. To address issues such as complex airspace coverage gaps and declining network quality for ground users, this paper explores the integration of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) technology into low-altitude mobile communication networks, and proposes a low-altitude networking architecture assisted by RIS at the transceiver side and channel side. Then this paper provides a cost-effective, low-power, and easily deployable solution for high-quality, continuous, and deep coverage in low-altitude areas.

Key words: wireless communication, low-altitude networks, RIS, network coverage