Conformal Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces: A Cylindrical Geometry Perspective

Curved reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) represent a promising frontier for next-generation wireless communications, enabling adaptive wavefront control on nonplanar platforms such as unmanned aerial vehicles and urban infrastructure. This work presents a systematic investigation of cylindrical RISs, progressing from idealized surface-impedance synthesis to practical implementations based on simple one-bit meta-atoms. Exact analytical and geometrical-optics-based models are first developed to explore fundamental design limits, followed by a semi-analytical formulation tailored to discrete, reconfigurable architectures. This model enables efficient beam synthesis using both evolutionary optimization and low-complexity strategies, including the minimum power distortionless response method, and is validated through full-wave simulations. Results confirm that one-bit RISs can achieve directive scattering with manageable sidelobe levels and minimal hardware complexity. These findings establish the viability of cylindrical RISs and open the door to their integration into dual-use wireless platforms for real-world communication scenarios.