Introduction of the work:

The Hybrid Adaptive Beamforming Systems using programmable Metasurfaces (METABEAM) project aims to realize different concepts for communication systems. The technique of metasurfaces can be regarded as the implementations of modern smart antenna arrays with codeable high-flexible beamforming. 

Figure1: Coding metamaterials can allow steering of a scattering beam to arbitrarily pre-designed direction [1]

One of the approaches is a mobile communication system using metasurface beamforming at the base station. In order to keep a strong signal power for the mobile user, a highly directed beam generated by metasurface should cover the user for a period of time. However, due to the lack of user movement behavior for conventional communication systems, the mobile user can easily travel beyond the coverage of beam from the base station. As a solution, target movement information can be gathered by radar signal processing. Afterwards, beamfroming from metasurface should be tuned to the correct position of mobile user based on prediction.

Figure 2: A simple scenario of user moving and metasurface beam tracking

Aims of the work:

1. This work is a combination of radar and communication signal processing, so both operations should be guaranteed.
2. The consideration of using metasurfaces brings some limitation which makes the system different from conventional phased array or MIMO system. Proper algorithms should be implemented.
3. Consideration of different mobile user moving scenarios, e.g. car driving scenarios, city scenarios.
4. Further improvement of the algorithms, in case of target lost, imperfect predictions, etc..

Requirements:

1. Basic knowledge of communication, radar and antennas.
2. Proficiency usage of Matlab simulation.

[1] https://www.osa-opn.org/home/articles/volume_27/december_2016/extras/an_information_science_view_of_metamaterials/