Reconfigurable intelligent surface-assisted free-space optical communication link for the Satellite-Internet of Things

The Satellite-Internet of Things (S-IoT) is envisaged as one of the promising technological enhancements in this decade due to its outright connectivity, especially in the areas of terrestrial communication and weather forecasting. Invariably, turbulent atmospheric conditions and varied terrain profiles are hindrances for satellite based free-space optical (FSO) communication, and immensely disrupt signal levels. Recently, a new technological invention called a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) empowered radio transmission environments for next generation wireless/optical technology has emerged. Elements of RIS are used to intelligently tune the striking beam towards desired locations. In this paper, we propose an RIS based FSO link to manueuver S-IoT. The challenges of pointing errors and turbulent atmospheric connectivity from a satellite to ground station and vice versa with the cooperation of RIS have been derived and substantiated with closed form solutions. The proposed system’s performance has been analyzed using packet and bit error rates, and outage probability over atmospheric turbulence, pointing errors, and signal blockage scenarios. Results are evaluated for different RIS elements as a function of average signal to noise ratio. The proposed system is extremely productive, since this scheme has the capability to provide dependable connectivity in rural, urban, and suburban environments where reliable connectivity is difficult in spite of traditional infrastructures.