Bamboo-Slip-Inspired Conformal Reconfigurable Metasurfaces

Metasurfaces with reconfigurable shapes have a stronger adaptability to complex environments. This paper designs a bamboo-slip-inspired conformal reconfigurable transmission metasurface system with splicing ability and scalability. Bamboo-slip-inspired subarrays are assembled on different support skeletons to form conformal metasurfaces of various shapes to adapt to wide-angle beam coverage in different environments. In order to realize the switching of radiation domain, a pattern reconfigurable antenna as feed source is designed in this paper. The radiation direction of the pattern reconfigurable antenna is adjusted by the turning on or off of the PIN diode. To verify the proposed conformal metasurface properties, a prototype was fabricated. The prototype demonstrates the powerful beam control capabilities of cylindrical, semi-hexagonal, and parabolic surfaces, respectively. The bamboo-slip-inspired conformal reconfigurable metasurface can be deployed on the surface of communication platforms of different shapes to adapt to various complex curved structures or space constraints, and can be well integrated with devices or systems.