Multi-Functional RIS-enabled Radar and Communication Coexistence: Channel Modeling and a Sub-6 GHz Indoor Measurement Campaign

Abstract: In this work, we analyze a multi-functional reconfigurable intelligent surface (MF-RIS)-enabled radar and communication coexistence (RCC) system, detailing the key aspects of its phase synthesis codebook generation and the implemented localization algorithm for real-time user tracking based on density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN), which features a Kalman filter for the prediction of user mobility. We derived a 3GPP-compatible radar cross-section (RCS) and re-radiation pattern-based channel model for the described MF-RIS system, supplementing it with channel measurements. We obtained large and small-scale characteristics, including path loss, shadow fading, Rician K-factor, cluster powers, and RMS delay spread. The study finds that Sub-6 GHz indoor propagation is largely free of blind spots, even with a blocked line-of-sight (LoS) path. Therefore, the proposed channel model includes non-line-of-sight (NLoS) paths, including the ones created by the MF-RIS. We also performed an experimental evaluation of the channel throughput in a fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) single user multiple-input-multiple-output (SU-MIMO) system, reporting a 74\% reduction in throughput variance and a 12.5\% sum-rate improvement within the MF-RIS near-field compared to the no-RIS setup. This result shows that the MF-RIS can minimize delay spread and increase the coherence bandwidth by creating virtual-LoS (vLoS) path for the moving user, thereby effectively hardening wireless MIMO channels.