Enabling mmWave Communications with VCSEL-Based Light-Emitting Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

2026-03-16

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of jointly achieving high-precision localization and efficient beamforming in millimeter-wave communications by proposing a light-emitting Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (LeRIS) architecture integrated with Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs). For the first time, VCSELs are incorporated into an RIS to exploit their directional Gaussian beams and dual-mode diversity, enabling closed-form estimation of user position and orientation using only three light sources. This estimate is then leveraged to dynamically configure the LeRIS for directional millimeter-wave beamforming. Experimental results demonstrate that the system simultaneously achieves millimeter-level localization accuracy and high spectral efficiency, validating the multifunctionality and scalability of the VCSEL-LeRIS framework in programmable 6G wireless environments.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Localization, Mapping, and Navigation
• Machine Learning: Multimodal Learning
• Computer Vision: Multi-modal Vision

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Applied ML and AI for Web-based mobile applications
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Vertical and domain-specific search
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements

Abstract

This paper proposes a light-emitting reconfigurable intelligent surface (LeRIS) architecture that integrates vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) to jointly support user localization and mmWave communication. By leveraging the directional Gaussian beams and dual-mode diversity of VCSELs, we derive a closed-form method for estimating user position and orientation using only three VCSEL sources. These estimates are then used to configure LeRIS panels for directional mmWave beamforming, enabling optimized wave propagation in programmable wireless environments. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed system achieves millimeter-level localization accuracy and maintains high spectral efficiency. These findings establish VCSEL-integrated LeRIS as a scalable and multifunctional solution for future 6G programmable wireless environments.

Problem

• mmWave communication
• user localization
• reconfigurable intelligent surfaces
• beamforming
• 6G

Innovation

• VCSEL
• Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface
• mmWave communication
• User localization
• Beamforming