TRACE: A Modular Framework for RIS-Assisted Channel Estimation and Differential Channel-Aware Reconfiguration

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS) research tightly couples channel-estimation, control and communication, yet existing implementations often rely on fixed algorithmic pipelines, making it difficult to compare alternative estimation, tracking and communication strategies under identical conditions and to study low-overhead RIS adaptation under time-varying channels. This paper addresses both challenges through two complementary contributions. First, it presents TRACE (Toolkit for RIS-assisted channel-estimation, adaptive control and communication experimentation), a modular socket-based framework that decouples the transmitter, radio environment, controller and receiver through separate control- and data-plane interfaces, enabling reproducible evaluation across substitutable modules. Second, it proposes the differential channel-aware RIS update (DCAR) algorithm, which estimates channel perturbations from reduced probe observations using a regularized differential update to reduce retraining overhead. TRACE is validated through interchangeable minimum mean square error and orthogonal matching pursuit channel-estimation, Gaussian random walk and Gauss--Markov channel evolution, BPSK, QPSK and 16-QAM modulation techniques and multiple RIS sizes, without modifying the underlying framework. Within TRACE, DCAR is observed to reduce pilot overhead and computational complexity while maintaining beamforming performance close to Kalman-filter-based tracking under time-varying channels.