Transmissive RIS-Assisted Vehicular Direct-to-Satellite Communications: Opportunities, Limitations, and Comparison with Phased Arrays
Abstract
This article studies transmissive reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted architectures. It compares them with electronically steered phased arrays for the deployment of vehicular direct-to-satellite (D2S) communications in future satellite networks. Rather than treating RIS as a direct replacement for phased arrays, we clarify the operating regimes in which RIS can serve as a low-power wavefront-shaping aperture and those in which phased arrays remain preferable because of their high gain and mature beam-tracking capability. Moreover, phased arrays can support multi-beam operation, which is particularly beneficial for dual connectivity and seamless handover. We distinguish analog, digital, and hybrid phased arrays, discuss the relationship between transmissive RIS and reconfigurable transmitarrays, and highlight practical profile, tracking, and link-budget constraints for mobile terminals. The comparison shows that passive RIS offers attractive power efficiency and aperture scalability, active RIS can partially improve the link budget, and phased arrays remain preferable for high-throughput.
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BibTeX
@misc{khan2026transmissive,
title = {{Transmissive RIS-Assisted Vehicular Direct-to-Satellite Communications: Opportunities, Limitations, and Comparison with Phased Arrays}},
author = {Wali Ullah Khan and Abdullah Abdullah and Juan Andres Vazquez-Peralvo and Eva Lagunas},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.29424},
eprint = {2608.29424},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.29424},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Transmissive RIS-Assisted Vehicular Direct-to-Satellite Communications: Opportunities, Limitations, and Comparison with Phased Arrays
AU - Wali Ullah Khan
AU - Abdullah Abdullah
AU - Juan Andres Vazquez-Peralvo
AU - Eva Lagunas
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/29
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.29424
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.29424
AB - This article studies transmissive reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted architectures. It compares them with electronically steered phased arrays for the deployment of vehicular direct-to-satellite (D2S) communications in future satellite networks. Rather than treating RIS as a direct replacement for phased arrays, we clarify the operating regimes in which RIS can serve as a low-power wavefront-shaping aperture and those in which phased arrays remain preferable because of their high gain and mature beam-tracking capability. Moreover, phased arrays can support multi-beam operation, which is particularly beneficial for dual connectivity and seamless handover. We distinguish analog, digital, and hybrid phased arrays, discuss the relationship between transmissive RIS and reconfigurable transmitarrays, and highlight practical profile, tracking, and link-budget constraints for mobile terminals. The comparison shows that passive RIS offers attractive power efficiency and aperture scalability, active RIS can partially improve the link budget, and phased arrays remain preferable for high-throughput.
ER -