Novel sensing and wireless communication systems using dynamic metasurfaces

Uninterrupted wireless communications with high data rates face challenges due to signal blockage and diffraction by various surfaces in the propagation environment. Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) offer a solution to this issue by redirecting wireless signals toward intended users. RISs create a smart electromagnetic environment where signal blockage can be avoided, security can be enhanced, and interference can be mitigated. However, the operation of RISs depends on knowing the directions of the users or transmitters. In this talk, I will discuss our group’s effort to solve this issue by developing hybrid RISs (HRIS). The HRIS can sense incident waves on its entire surface, determine the user’s direction, and reconfigure their reflection patterns accordingly. The design and operation of HRISs will be illustrated, and a compressive sensing process that ensures that desired performance can be achieved using a minimum number of receiving units will be outlined. Additionally, I will present our progress on using RISs to create new functionalities, such as producing reflectivity maps for security screening purposes. The discussion will also demonstrate how computational sensing using reconfigurable metasurfaces can be extended to conformal structures. Lastly, our effort to overcome multiple scattering in wireless networks on the chip using dynamic metasurfaces will be discussed. I will conclude my talk by discussing future directions for dynamic metasurfaces in intelligent electromagnetic environments.

Mohammadreza Imani

Assistant Professor, Arizona State University on November 22, 2024 at 10:15 AM in EB2 1231

Mohammadreza F. Imani received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan (USA) in 2013. From 2014 to 2020, he worked as a Postdoc and Research Scientist at Duke University. In 2020, he joined the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University as an Assistant Professor. He has over a decade of experience working on metamaterials and metasurfaces for designing novel antennas and devices for a wide array of applications, including super-resolution sensors, highly efficient wireless power transfer systems, fast security screening systems, synthetic aperture radar, and (MIMO) wireless communication. He has authored and co-authored over 70 journal publications and holds 7 patents. His research interests include analytical and applied electromagnetics, metamaterials and metasurfaces, computational imaging and sensing, wireless power transfer, antenna analysis and synthesis, and wireless communication systems.