Wireless Communication Using a Radiation-Type Metasurface

The rapid development of metasurfaces offers new possibilities to establish novel wireless communication systems with simplified architectures. However, the current demonstration systems are based on the reflection-type metasurfaces, which suffer from high profiles and integration challenges in practice. Such configurations are also inefficient for handling multiple subcarriers during beam scanning and beam tracking. To address these limitations, a radiation-type metasurface fed by a microstrip array antenna is proposed in this paper, which is used to construct a new-architecture wireless communication system. Compared to the reported metasurface-based communication systems, the proposed design is more flexible for information modulation and transmission, with the system profile significantly reduced. The phase modulation is implemented by changing the transmission phase of metasurface, allowing for baseband signals to be directly imparted to the carrier wave from the feeding source. A real-time signal transmission experiment validates the performance of the proposed metasurface-based communication system.