Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS)-assisted wireless transmission has recently emerged as a potential candidate to enable a smart and reconfigurable radio environment for future wireless communication systems. This paper investigates the performance of an IRS-assisted wireless communication system, where an IRS deployed on top of the source (S) acts as an intelligent access point that can adjust the phase of an incident unmodulated carrier signal generated at S in a deliberate manner to enhance the reception quality at the destination (D). In this setup, a moment generating function (MGF) based performance evaluation is developed with regard to average and effective throughput over the generalized \(\kappa\)–\(\mu\) fading channels. In addition, a unified mathematical framework for the average bit error rate/symbol error rate analysis is provided, which will be helpful to study the system behavior under different modulation formats. Furthermore, a simplified asymptotic expression for the system metrics is derived under a high signal-to-noise ratio region, through which the diversity order of the system is achieved. The accuracy of the derived theoretical expressions is validated through Monte-Carlo simulation results. Interesting insights related to the channel fading parameter and the number of reflecting elements on the system performance are drawn and discussed conclusively.

智能反射面 (IRS) 辅助无线传输最近已成为为未来无线通信系统启用智能和可重新配置的无线电环境的潜在候选者。本文研究了 IRS 辅助无线通信系统的性能，其中部署在源 (S) 顶部的 IRS 作为智能接入点，可以有意识地调整在 S 处生成的入射未调制载波信号的相位提高目的地的接收质量（D）。在此设置中，针对广义\(\kappa\) – \(\mu\) 上的平均和有效吞吐量开发了基于矩生成函数 (MGF) 的性能评估衰落的频道。此外，为平均误码率/符号误码率分析提供了统一的数学框架，这将有助于研究不同调制格式下的系统行为。此外，在高信噪比区域下推导出系统度量的简化渐近表达式，通过它实现系统的分集顺序。通过蒙特卡罗模拟结果验证了推导出的理论表达式的准确性。得出并最终讨论了与信道衰落参数和反映系统性能的元素数量相关的有趣见解。