Energy Efficient Wireless Communications by Harnessing Huygens' Metasurfaces

Ambitions for the next generation of wireless communication include high data rates, low latency, ubiquitous access, ensuring sustainability (in terms of consumption of energy and natural resources), all while maintaining a reasonable level of implementation complexity. Achieving these goals necessitates reforms in cellular networks, specifically in the physical layer and antenna design. The deployment of transmissive metasurfaces at basestations (BSs) presents an appealing solution, enabling beamforming in the radiated wave domain, minimizing the need for energy-hungry RF chains. Among various metasurface-based antenna designs, we propose using Huygens' metasurface-based antennas (HMAs) at BSs. Huygens' metasurfaces offer an attractive solution for antennas because, by utilizing Huygens' equivalence principle, they allow independent control over both the amplitude and phase of the transmitted electromagnetic wave. In this paper, we investigate the fundamental limits of HMAs in wireless networks by integrating electromagnetic theory and information theory within a unified analytical framework. Specifically, we model the unique electromagnetic characteristics of HMAs and incorporate them into an information-theoretic optimization framework to determine their maximum achievable sum rate. By formulating an optimization problem that captures the impact of HMA's hardware constraints and electromagnetic properties, we quantify the channel capacity of HMA-assisted systems. We then compare the performance of HMAs against phased arrays and other metasurface-based antennas in both rich scattering and realistic 3GPP channels, highlighting their potential in improving spectral and energy efficiency.

Hardware Limitations of Dynamic Metasurface Antennas in the Uplink: A Comparative Study

Dynamic Metasurface Antennas (DMAs) have emerged as promising candidates for basestation deployment in the next generation of wireless communications. While overlooking the practical and hardware limitations of DMA, previous studies have highlighted DMAs' potential to deliver high data rates while maintaining low power consumption. In this paper, we address this oversight by analyzing the impact of practical hardware limitations such as antenna efficiency, power consumed in required components, processing limitations, etc. Specifically, we investigate DMA-assisted wireless communications in the uplink and propose a model which accounts for these hardware limitations. To do so, we propose a concise model to characterize the power consumption of a DMA. For a fair assessment, we propose a wave-domain combiner, based on holography theory, to maximize the achievable sum rate of DMA-assisted antennas. We compare the achievable sum rate and energy efficiency of DMA antennas with that of a partially connected hybrid phased array. Our findings reveal the true potential of DMAs when accounting for the limitations of both designs.

Uplink Wave-Domain Combiner for Stacked Intelligent Metasurfaces Accounting for Hardware Limitations

Using refractive metasurfaces (RMTSs) as part of the antenna design offers a promising solution to the ever-increasing demand for improved energy efficiency of wireless communications. To overcome the limitations of using one RMTS layer, a recent proposal is to cascade multiple layers, a structure called stacked intelligent metasurfaces (SIMs) where the desired precoder and combiner is formed in the wave domain. However, while proposing the antenna structure, the analysis did not account for the attendant limitations imposed by the hardware used which has a significant impact on the performance of SIMs. In this paper, we study the achievable sum-rate of a SIM antenna in an uplink wireless communication scenario accounting for hardware limitations. We begin by proposing a system model that captures both the effect of noise and hardware limitations in these systems. We then formulate the achievable sum-rate problem; since optimizing the rate is non-convex, we propose two approaches: a gradient ascent algorithm and an interior point method to find a close-to-optimum combiner. To show the efficiency of using SIMs at a basestation, we compare the achievable sum-rate with that of a digital phased array (DPA). We provide two comparisons: first, in Rayleigh fading and realistic 3GPP channels and then under a constraint of an equal number of radio frequency (RF) chains and equal physical aperture size constraint. Our results show that SIM antennas can surpass DPA performance under an equal number of RF chains but has inferior performance under equal aperture size.