“…Therefore, this survey provides a more detailed discussion on IRS technology and covers historical concepts, nomenclature, system architecture and design, an IRS-aided wireless network deployment and performance, smart radio channels with an an IRS and the limitations of the existing works and key future research directions. Furthermore, this survey covers several recent research advancements such as IRS-assisted UAV or UAV-satellite systems [ 38 , 39 ], an IRS aided for mobile edge computing [ 40 , 41 ], IRS-aided multiuser communication [ 42 ], IRS-aided localization [ 43 , 44 ], IRS-aided vehicular communications [ 45 ] and IRS-aided power transfer [ 46 , 47 ]. Finally, this survey discusses the current research gaps/opportunities and the possible solutions.…”