Conformal Metasurfaces for Recovering Dynamic Blockage in Vehicular Systems

Marouan Mizmizi; Dario Tagliaferri; Misagh Khosronejad; Laura Resteghini; Gian Guido Gentili; Lorenza Draghi; Umberto Spagnolini

arXiv · 2208.06881

Conformal Metasurfaces for Recovering Dynamic Blockage in Vehicular Systems

Marouan Mizmizi·Dario Tagliaferri·Misagh Khosronejad·Laura Resteghini·Gian Guido Gentili·Lorenza Draghi·Umberto Spagnolini

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Abstract

Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS) will represent a key technology in the upcoming sixth-generation (6G) communication networks to extend the network coverage and overcome link blockage. Research on IRS is expected to take a giant leap in the coming years to address the current technological limitations, mainly regarding the IRS re-configuration in highly dynamic scenarios, such as vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) ones. This paper proposes a fully passive and low-cost solution based on pre-configured IRS to be lodged on the vehicle's body, which does not require any signaling for re-configuration. However, conventional IRS are planar array and cannot fit with most vehicles' silhouettes. Hence, the proposed design targets conformal surfaces (C-IRS) with an arbitrary shape. In particular, this paper reveals the first experimental findings on the realization of C-IRS operating at 26 GHz and measurements in anechoic chamber, which validate the analytical derivations. To demonstrate the benefits of the proposed solution, numerical simulations in a V2V scenario show that, when the percentage of vehicles equipping a C-IRS increases, the communication becomes more robust to vehicles' blockage and the average end-to-end SNR is enhanced up to 25 dB.

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BibTeX RIS

Marouan Mizmizi, Dario Tagliaferri, Misagh Khosronejad, Laura Resteghini, Gian Guido Gentili, Lorenza Draghi, Umberto Spagnolini. 2022-08-14. Conformal Metasurfaces for Recovering Dynamic Blockage in Vehicular Systems. https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.06881

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