Multi-diverse metasurfaces for fast wide-angle sensing and through-wall imaging

Abstract

Multi-diverse metasurfaces play a crucial role in enhancing the capacity of sensing, radar, imaging, and communication systems through electromagnetic wave manipulation across different diversity controls. Currently, the primary approach for achieving multidimensional manipulation is through the use of dynamic metasurfaces. However, this method has drawbacks when it comes to fast sensing and imaging because of limitations in pattern switching speed. To address this issue, we propose a novel microwave-to-millimeter-wave meta-atom that provides polarization and frequency diversities. The meta-atoms formed in an array with a disordered permutation enable a wide-angle near-field fast sensing for tracking the moving trajectory of an object. Moreover, employing a dispersion-engineered strategy to arrange the meta-atoms in an array allows for high-gain through-wall imaging, enabling the detection of a sparse object with varying shapes and positions. The achieved result confirms that the proposed technology paves the way for developing multi-diverse metasurfaces that possess fast detecting and through-wall imaging capabilities. This breakthrough creates opportunities for identifying previously unseen modalities, and opens up new possibilities in various applications such as autonomous vehicles, all-weather sensing in surveillance, and radar integrated communication systems in 6G and beyond.