  Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) has been considered as a revolutionary
technology to enhance the wireless communication performance. To cater for
multiple mobile users, adjusting IRS beamforming patterns over time, i.e.,
dynamic IRS beamforming (DIBF), is generally needed for achieving satisfactory
performance, which results in high controlling power consumption and overhead.
To avoid such cost, we propose a new architecture based on the static regulated
IRS for wireless coverage enhancement, where the principle of distributed
multiple-input multiple-output (D-MIMO) is integrated into the system to
exploite the diversity of spatial directions provided by multiple access points
(APs). For this new D-MIMO empowered static IRS architecture, the total target
area is partitioned into several subareas and each subarea is served by an
assigned AP. We consider to maximize the worst-case received power over all
locations in the target area by jointly optimizing a single set of IRS
beamforming pattern and AP-subarea association. Then, a two-step algorithm is
proposed to obtain its high-quality solution. Theoretical analysis unveils that
the fundamental squared power gain can still be achieved over all locations in
the target area. The performance gap relative to the DIBF scheme is also
analytically quantified. Numerical results validate our theoretical findings
and demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed design over benchmark
schemes.
