Controllable Manipulation of Wi-Fi Signals Using Tunable Metasurface

Abstract

In this paper, we propose the utilization of a programmable metasurface for flexibly manipulating ambient Wi-Fi signals. First, we propose a new and efficient optimization algorithm CWGS (Complex Weighted Gerchberg-Saxton), which is based on an electromagnetic scattering model of the metasurface. The proposed algorithm quickly redesigns the complex amplitude distribution of the Wi-Fi field bounced off the programmable metasurface to enhance the Wi-Fi signals at desired locations significantly. Second, we fabricated a large-scale programmable metasurface that operates at the 2.4 GHz frequency band. We conducted several experiments using the fabricated metasurface to verify the proposed optimization algorithm’s feasibility and effectiveness. Both the theoretical and experimental results show that the programmable metasurface can dynamically boost Wi-Fi signals at multiple locations. Besides, we experimentally verified that using the developed strategy could improve the Wi-Fi signals by 23.5 dB. The results of our work improve the usability and practicality of the programmable metasurface in real-world applications and pave the way for wireless communications, future smart homes, and other applications.

Keywords

• commodity wi-fi signals
• programmable coding metasurface
• spatial energy allocation