Low-Cost and Purely Passive Reflective Metasurface Using Modular Metastrip for Indoor Sub-6-GHz Communication

Abstract

Reflective metasurfaces (RMSs) using electrically controlled methods are attracting considerable attention for their potential to improve coverage in shadowing areas that will be encountered in next-generation wireless communications. In general, each unit cell integrates with an electrical control device such as positive-intrinsic-negative (PIN) diodes or varactors. Because of the electrical devices, the manufacturing cost is high, and the RMS consumes DC power; however, cost and power consumption are less than those of repeaters. In this paper, we propose a novel low-cost and purely passive modular reflective metasurface (MRMS). Instead of electrical control devices, four kinds of modular metastrips are introduced. The proposed MRMS is capable of manually programming modular metastrips to produce general reflections, anomalous reflections from 0 to 50°, and scattering. The proposed MRMS can be reassembled with the desired functionality. The performance of the proposed MRMS is demonstrated through theoretical and numerical analysis, continuous wave and digital signal measurements, and indoor communication scenario measurements. Although the proposed MRMS cannot be programmed dynamically, it can simply be customized to maintain wireless connectivity of internet-of-things devices, which are not frequently moved. © 1963-2012 IEEE.