On the Performance of RIS-Empowered Transmitters with Receive Combining Techniques
The study investigates how practical phase-shift constraints on Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) affect multi-antenna systems using Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC) and Receive Antenna Selection (RAS). The findings show that due to these constraints, RAS outperforms MRC in terms of diversity order, contrary to conventional expectations.