On the Feasibility of RIS-enabled Cooperative Driving

Future cooperative autonomous vehicles will require high-performance communication means to support functions such as cooperative maneuvering and cooperative perception. The high-bandwidth requirements of these functions can be met through mmWave communications, whose utilization is often hindered by the harsh propagation conditions of typical vehicular environments. A solution to this problem is the use of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs), which enable the reflection of signals in a configurable direction, and have recently gained attention in the vehicular domain. In this paper, we provide an initial feasibility study, highlighting the challenges ahead and the performance RISs need to deliver in order to enable this type of communications. Specifically, we utilize CoopeRIS, a simulation framework for RISs integrated into the Plexe/Veins/SUMO ecosystem that we develop as further contribution and will release to the public.