How Many Bits Are Required for RIS Designs Without Far-Field Quantization Lobe?

Abstract

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS) designs with 1-bit phase resolution often suffer from strong quantization lobes in the far field, which significantly degrade wireless communication performance. This work investigates the minimum phase resolution required for RIS to eliminate far-field quantization lobe. The analysis demonstrates that 2-bit phase discretization offers an optimal balance between performance and hardware complexity. A practical 2-bit RIS unit cell is designed, and a 20 x 20 array configuration is implemented to evaluate its performance. The quantization-lobe suppression capability is validated through full-wave radar cross-section (RCS) simulations under plane-wave illumination for the entire RIS array. The fabricated prototype is further characterized experimentally, achieving a -13.1 dB quantization-lobe level compared to -0.8 dB for its 1-bit counterpart, confirming both the analytical and full-wave simulation results.