Collaborative Research: NeTS: Medium: Scalable Metasurface Array for mmWave Communication and Sensing

合作研究：NeTS：Medium：用于毫米波通信和传感的可扩展超表面阵列

• 批准号: 2312716
• 负责人: Suman Banerjee
• 金额: $ 40万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2027-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2312716&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; NeTS; Medium; Scalable

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) technologies are demonstrating exciting prospects in both 5G communications and radar sensing applications. However, the limited coverage of mmWave remains a major challenge to its usability in practice. The objective of this project is to harness synergistic innovations in mmWave communication/sensing systems and printable materials/electronics to overcome the intrinsic limitations of mmWave signals. The PI team explores the design of an ultra-large and ultra-wideband metasurface array to expand mmWave coverage and optimize the associated performance tradeoffs. The project outcome will likely inform the design of mmWave networks, influence the beyond-5G (B5G) standardization, and advance many B5G applications, especially in the challenging mmWave vehicular networking and automotive sensing domains. The project can also generate substantial economic impacts by boosting the 5G mmWave coverage and reliability at signifcantly low cost. The project impact will be further extended by engaging a diverse group of student researchers and industrial partners, and by disseminating open-source experimental hardware and low-cost fabrication workflows for advanced mmWave devices. The proposed research incorporates novel printable materials/electronics to advance the field of mmWave metasurface reflectors. Although active and passive metasurfaces have been extensively explored in electromagnetic research, they are limited in size, bandwidth, and mostly employed for a single link. Active metasurfaces bear a high cost and complexity as they need power sources, high-frequency components, high-precision substrate and fabrication processes, and a separate control channel to coordinate with existing devices. On the other hand, passive metasurface reflectors are often deemed inferior and suitable only for static scenarios due to lack of reconfigurability. In addition, state-of-the-art active/passive metasurfaces are limited to centimeter-scale, yet practical deployment entails meter-level (hundreds of wavelengths) in dimension, which induces non-trivial challenges such as severe beam distortion due to near-field effects and frequency-selectivity. To address these challenges, the PI team proposes 3 research thrusts: (1) Designing new beam synthesis models to enable ultra-large metasurfaces, and new techniques to incrementally reconfigure a passive metasurface array (PMA), so as to expand the angular coverage, beamforming gain, support mobility, and to avoid interference between nearby base stations; (2) Designing new mechanisms that leverage the PMA as a passive "encoder" to address the coverage-resolution-dimension tradeoff in mmWave sensing; (3) Exploring graphene-based metasurface structures to scale mmWave joint communication and sensing beyond the bandwidth limit of traditional RF hardware. The proposed research will lead to various community toolsets and reproducible fabrication workflows for creating low-cost mmWave metasurfaces through 3D printing or mold imprinting.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

毫米波（MMWAVE）技术在5G通信和雷达传感应用中都表现出令人兴奋的前景。但是，MMWave的覆盖范围有限仍然是其实践中其可用性的主要挑战。该项目的目的是利用MMWave通信/传感系统和可打印材料/电子设备的协同创新来克服MMWAVE信号的内在限制。 PI团队探索了超大和超宽带跨面阵列的设计，以扩大MMWave覆盖范围并优化相关的性能权衡。项目结果可能会为MMWave网络的设计提供信息，影响5G（B5G）的标准化，并推进许多B5G应用程序，尤其是在具有挑战性的MMWave车辆网络和汽车传感域中。该项目还可以通过以低廉的价格提高5G MMWAVE覆盖范围和可靠性来产生重大的经济影响。通过与一组不同的学生研究人员和工业合作伙伴一起参与，将进一步扩大项目影响，并通过为高级MMWave设备传播开源实验硬件和低成本制造工作流程。拟议的研究结合了新型的可打印材料/电子产品，以推动MMWave跨表面反射器的领域。尽管在电磁研究中已经广泛探索了主动和被动的跨面，但它们的大小，带宽且主要用于单个链接。主动元信息需要高成本和复杂性，因为它们需要电源，高频组件，高精度基板和制造过程以及一个单独的控制通道，以与现有设备进行协调。另一方面，由于缺乏可重构性，被动跨表面反射器通常被视为较低，仅适用于静态场景。 此外，最新的主动/被动式跨面限于厘米尺度，但实际的部署需要仪表级（数百个波长）的尺寸，这会引起非平凡的挑战，例如由于近场效应和频率 - 频率效应和频率 - 检出性而引起的严重梁失真。 为了应对这些挑战，PI团队提出了3个研究推力：（1）设计新的光束合成模型以实现超大的跨苏联和新技术，以逐步重新配置一个被动式跨表面阵列（PMA），以扩大角度的覆盖范围，扩展束成绩，范围，以扩大束缚的增益，支撑移动性，并避免互换，并避免插入底座底座底座底座; （2）设计利用PMA作为被动“编码器”的新机制来解决MMWave传感中的覆盖范围分辨率差异权； （3）探索基于石墨烯的跨表面结构，以扩展MMWave的关节通信，并超出传统RF硬件的带宽极限。拟议的研究将导致各种社区工具集和可再现的制造工作流程，以通过3D打印或霉菌印刷来创建低成本MMWave metasurfaces。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的审查标准来通过评估来通过评估来支持的。