skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Radio-transparent dipole antenna based on a metasurface cloak
Abstract Antenna technology is at the basis of ubiquitous wireless communication systems and sensors. Radiation is typically sustained by conduction currents flowing around resonant metallic objects that are optimized to enhance efficiency and bandwidth. However, resonant conductors are prone to large scattering of impinging waves, leading to challenges in crowded antenna environments due to blockage and distortion. Metasurface cloaks have been explored in the quest of addressing this challenge by reducing antenna scattering. However, metasurface-based designs have so far shown limited performance in terms of bandwidth, footprint and overall scattering reduction. Here we introduce a different route towards radio-transparent antennas, in which the cloak itself acts as the radiating element, drastically reducing the overall footprint while enhancing scattering suppression and bandwidth, without sacrificing other relevant radiation metrics compared to conventional antennas. This technique opens opportunities for cloaking technology, with promising features for crowded wireless communication platforms and noninvasive sensing.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2106752
PAR ID:
10337034
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Nature Communications
Volume:
13
Issue:
1
ISSN:
2041-1723
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; (, Nature Communications)
    Abstract The emergence of new technological needs in 5 G/6 G networking and broadband satellite internet access amplifies the demand for innovative wireless communication hardware, including high-performance low-profile transceivers. In this context, antennas based on metasurfaces – artificial surfaces engineered to manipulate electromagnetic waves at will – represent highly promising solutions. In this article, we introduce leaky-wave metasurface antennas operating at micro/millimeter-wave frequencies that are designed using the principles of quasi-bound states in the continuum, exploiting judiciously tailored spatial symmetries that enable fully customized radiation. Specifically, we unveil additional degrees of control over leaky-wave radiation by demonstrating pointwise control of the amplitude, phase and polarization state of the metasurface aperture fields by carefully breaking relevant symmetries with tailored perturbations. We design and experimentally demonstrate metasurface antenna prototypes showcasing a variety of functionalities advancing capabilities in wireless communications, including single-input multi-output and multi-input multi-output near-field focusing, as well as far-field beam shaping. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; (, IEEE)
    Antenna designs play a crucial role in wireless communication systems where high-performance specifications are greatly required. The radiation pattern (RP) specification in both the E-plane and H-plane is important, as it connects the antenna gain along a given direction. This performance is calculated in the entire bandwidth for various frequencies and is time-consuming. To speed up these simulations, a new approach with the help of a generative adversarial network (GAN) is presented, leading to the prediction of the expected radiation pattern outcomes for the determined frequencies. This method is verified for two previously optimized antennas, one operating between 8.8-10.1 GHz and the other working in the 11.3-13.16 G Hz band. The experimental simulation results prove that the mean absolute error is less than 0.35, which yields suitable accuracy for RP predictions. 
    more » « less
  3. (, METANANO-2020)
    null (Ed.)
    The concept of mantle cloaking is applied to suppress the undesired cross-coupling among the antenna elements of two tightly spaced and interleaved phased antenna arrays used in 5G wireless applications, which in turn enhances the radiation characteristics of the arrays. It is demonstrated that the specifically designed metasurface cloaks decouple the antenna elements of two different arrays and enable to restore the original radiation patterns of the isolated arrays, such that the antenna arrays placed in close proximity of each other can radiate independently for a wide range of beam scanning angles. This paper illustrates microstrip antenna arrays with elliptically shaped metasurface cloaks integrated in printed technology. The simulation results validate the fact that by encasing the elements of the arrays with their respective cloaks, it is not only possible to eliminate the cross coupling but also to restore the radiation properties of the antenna arrays within the frequency bands of their operation. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; (, Proceedings of the USENIX NSDI Symposium)
    Small, low-cost IoT devices are typically equipped with only a single, low-quality antenna, significantly limiting communication range and link quality. In particular, these antennas are typically linearly polarized and therefore susceptible to polarization mismatch, which can easily cause 10-15 dBm of link loss on communication to and from such devices. In this work, we highlight this under-appreciated issue and propose the augmentation of IoT deployment environments with programmable, RF-sensitive surfaces made of metamaterials. Our smart meta-surface mitigates polarization mismatch by rotating the polarization of signals that pass through or reflect off the surface. We integrate our metasurface into an IoT network as LLAMA, a Low-power Lattice of Actuated Metasurface Antennas, designed for the pervasively used 2.4 GHz ISM band. We optimize LLAMA’s metasurface design for both low transmission loss and low cost, to facilitate deployment at scale. We then build an end-to-end system that actuates the metasurface structure to optimize for link performance in real time. Our experimental prototype-based evaluation demonstrates gains in link power of up to 15 dBm, and wireless capacity improvements of 100 and 180 Kbit/s/Hz in through-surface and surface-reflective scenarios, respectively, attributable to the polarization rotation properties of LLAMA’s metasurface. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, International Journal of Antennas and Propagation)
    null (Ed.)
    Reconfigurable antenna systems have gained much attention for potential use in the next generation wireless systems. However, conventional direction-of-arrival (DoA) estimation algorithms for antenna arrays cannot be used directly in reconfigurable antennas due to different design of the antennas. In this paper, we present an adjacent pattern power ratio (APPR) algorithm for two-port composite right/left-handed (CRLH) reconfigurable leaky-wave antennas (LWAs). Additionally, we compare the performances of the APPR algorithm and LWA-based MUSIC algorithms. We study how the computational complexity and the performance of the algorithms depend on number of selected radiation patterns. In addition, we evaluate the performance of the APPR and MUSIC algorithms with numerical simulations as well as with real world indoor measurements having both line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight components. Our performance evaluations show that the DoA estimates are in a considerably good agreement with the real DoAs, especially with the APPR algorithm. In summary, the APPR and MUSIC algorithms for DoA estimation along with the planar and compact LWA layout can be a valuable solution to enhance the performance of the wireless communication in the next generation systems. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email