Signal Processing Foundations of Reconfigurable Antennas in the Tri-Hybrid MIMO Architecture

To enable larger apertures in multipleinput multipleoutput MIMO systems the trihybrid MIMO architecture offers a promising lowcost and lowpower solution by introducing reconfigurable antennas as a third layer of precoding on top of conventional digital and analog processing In this paper we develop a unified signal processing framework for trihybrid MIMO that explicitly captures the electromagnetic EM characteristics of diverse reconfigurable antenna technologies We first propose a generic inputoutput model that incorporates the reconfigurable antenna layer into an effective channel representation revealing a fundamental coupling between the channel precoder and radiated power Building on this model we formulate a general optimization problem that jointly accounts for digital analog and antennadomain precoding under hardware and power constraints We then instantiate this framework across seven representative reconfigurable antenna architectures including parasitic arrays dynamic metasurface antennas fluidpixel antennas polarizationreconfigurable antennas stacked intelligent metasurfaces pinching antenna systems and nonradiating wires To systematically compare these heterogeneous architectures we introduce a new metric the reconfigurability efficiency factor REF which quantifies the performance gains achievable through antenna reconfiguration under realistic constraints Numerical results demonstrate the tradeoffs among aperture size power consumption hardware complexity and spectral efficiency Our results establish that EMlevel reconfiguration reshapes the signal processing design space highlighting the need for new architectures and algorithms that jointly optimize across digital analog and electromagnetic domains This work reveals that electromagnetic reconfiguration couples the channel and precoder

Wideband dynamic metasurface antenna performance with practical design characteristics

Dynamic metasurface antennas (DMA) provide low-power beamforming through reconfigurable radiative slots. Each slot has a tunable component that consumes low power compared to typical analog components like phase shifters. This makes DMAs a potential candidate to minimize the power consumption of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna arrays. In this paper, we investigate the use of DMAs in a wideband communication setting with practical DMA design characteristics. We develop approximations for the DMA beamforming gain that account for the effects of waveguide attenuation, element frequency-selectivity, and limited reconfigurability of the tunable components as a function of the signal bandwidth. The approximations allow for key insights into the wideband performance of DMAs in terms of different design variables. We develop a simple successive beamforming algorithm to improve the wideband performance of DMAs by sequentially configuring each DMA element. Simulation results for a line-of-sight (LOS) wideband system show the accuracy of the approximations with the simulated DMA model in terms of spectral efficiency. We also find that the proposed successive beamforming algorithm increases the overall spectral efficiency of the DMA-based wideband system compared with a baseline DMA beamforming method.

Beamforming with hybrid reconfigurable parasitic antenna arrays

A parasitic reconfigurable antenna array is a low-power approach for beamforming using passive tunable elements. Prior work on reconfigurable antennas in communication theory is based on ideal radiation pattern abstractions. It does not address the problem of physical realizability. Beamforming with parasitic elements is inherently difficult because mutual coupling creates non-linearity in the beamforming gain objective. We develop a multi-port circuit-theoretic model of the hybrid array with parasitic elements and antennas with active RF chain validated through electromagnetic simulations with a dipole array. We then derive the beamforming weight of the parasitic element using the theoretical beam pattern expression for the case of a single active antenna and multiple parasitic elements. We show that the parasitic beamforming is challenging because the weights are subject to coupled magnitude and phase constraints. We simplify the beamforming optimization problem using a shift-of-origin transformation to the typical unit-modulus beamforming weight. With this transformation, we derive a closed-form solution for the reconfigurable parasitic reactance. We generalize this solution to the multi-active multi-parasitic hybrid array operating in a multi-path channel. Our proposed hybrid architecture with parasitic elements outperforms conventional architectures in terms of energy efficiency.