Metasurfaces 3.0: a New Paradigm for Enabling Smart Electromagnetic Environments

Abstract

So far, the environment has been considered as a source of fading, clutter, blockage, etc., with detrimental consequences for the efficiency and robustness of communication systems. However, the intense research developed toward beyond-5G communications is leading to a paradigm change, in which the environment is exploited as a new degree of freedom and plays an active role in achieving unprecedented system performances. For implementing this challenging paradigm, it has been recently proposed the use of intelligent surfaces able to control almost at will the propagation of electromagnetic waves. In this framework, metasurfaces have emerged as a promising solution, thanks to their field manipulation capabilities achieved through low-cost, lightweight, and planar structures. The aim of this paper is to review some recent applications of metasurfaces and cast them in the scenario of next-generation wireless systems. In particular, we show their potentialities in overcoming some detrimental effects presented by the environment in wireless communications, and discuss their crucial role towards the practical implementation of a smart electromagnetic environment.

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Quadratic-Gradient Metasurface-Dome for Wide-Angle Beam Steering Phased Array with Reduced Gain-Loss at Broadside
• Pulse-Driven Self-Reconfigurable Meta-Antennas
• Phase-Gradient Huygens Metasurface Coatings for Dynamic Beamforming in Linear Antennas
• Generalized Analysis and Unified Design of EM Skins
• Features and Potentialities of Static Passive EM Skins for NLOS Specular Wireless Links
• Optically-Transparent EM Skins for Outdoor-to-Indoor mm-Wave Wireless Communications
• Design of reconfigurable Huygens metasurfaces based on Drude-like scatterers operating in the epsilon-negative regime
• Towards Real-World Indoor Smart Electromagnetic Environments -- A Large-Scale Experimental Demonstration