Xiangbai Liao | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Over-the-Air Interference Nulling Using Active RIS

Interference fundamentally limits the performance of dense wireless networks, and reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) have recently emerged as a promising means of enabling interference-free transmission in the Degrees-of-Freedom (DoF) sense. This paper investigates the feasibility of achieving full DoF in a two-way K-user interference channel-a canonical interference-limited setting-by employing an active RIS. Unlike its passive counterpart, an active RIS is subject to both per-element gain constraints and a total reflection-power constraint, which renders over-the-air interference nulling equivalent to solving a constrained random linear system with coupled nonlinear constraints. By leveraging tools from high-dimensional convex geometry, we derive a tight scaling threshold on the required number of reflecting elements (REs) for full-DoF transmission. We further extend the analysis to scenarios where each RE incurs circuit power consumption under a total power budget, leading to a fundamental tradeoff between RIS transmit power and circuit power. For this setting, we establish the thresholds for both the total power and the corresponding number of REs required to achieve interference-free transmission. Simulation results validate the theoretical analysis.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2026

Over-the-Air Interference Nulling Using Passive RIS for Two-Way K-User Interference Channel

Interference constitutes the fundamental performance bottleneck in wireless networks. Meanwhile, reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has emerged as a promising technique for interference mitigation by directly modifying wireless channels. In this paper, we are interested in the following problem: whether \textit{interference-free} transmission (in terms of Degree-of-Freedom, DoF) can be achieved with the aid of passive RIS in the two-way K-user interference channel, which is regarded as the most severely interfered network. We show that the answer is affirmative, i.e., interference in this network can be neutralized over the air. To accomplish this goal, two prominent challenges arise: i) the unit-modulus constraint on each RIS reflecting coefficient; ii) the significant disparity between the strengths of the direct and reflective channels. To address these challenges, we exploit the high-dimensional and random nature of wireless channels. Specifically, we cast the problem within a high-dimensional convex geometric framework, which enables us to leverage the ubiquitous \textit{concentration} phenomenon in high-dimensional spaces. Based on this framework, we establish both sufficient and necessary conditions on the required number of RIS elements to achieve interference-free DoF, which turns out to \textit{coincide} in order sense. Furthermore, we characterize the impact of imperfect channel state information (CSI) on the achievable DoF and show that interference-free DoF remains achievable if the CSI error is below a certain threshold. Simulation results validate our theoretical findings.

cs.IT↗