A Vision to Smart Radio Environment: Surface Wave Communication Superhighways
Kai-Kit Wong, Kin-Fai Tong, Zhiyuan Chu, and Yangyang Zhang

TL;DR
This paper envisions a future smart radio environment utilizing surface wave propagation on programmable metasurfaces to create energy-efficient, interference-free data highways with localized high-speed communication capabilities.
Contribution
It introduces the concept of surface wave communication superhighways on smart surfaces, highlighting their potential for ultra-high energy efficiency and interference management.
Findings
Surface wave propagation offers lower pathloss than free space.
Smart surfaces enable localized, high-speed data access.
Fluidic waveguiding architecture allows dynamic data highway creation.
Abstract
Complementary to traditional approaches that focus on transceiver design for bringing the best out of unstable, lossy fading channels, one radical development in wireless communications that has recently emerged is to pursue a smart radio environment by using software-defined materials or programmable metasurfaces for establishing favourable propagation conditions. This article portraits a vision of communication superhighways enabled by surface wave (SW) propagation on "smart surfaces" for future smart radio environments. The concept differs from the mainstream efforts of using passive elements on a large surface for bouncing off radio waves intelligently towards intended user terminals. In this vision, energy efficiency will be ultra-high, due to much less pathloss compared to free space propagation, and the fact that SW is inherently confined to the smart surface not only greatly…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAdvanced Wireless Communication Technologies · Indoor and Outdoor Localization Technologies · Antenna Design and Analysis
