Adaptive Electromagnetic Manipulation via Smart Metasurface with Ultrasonic Spatial Sensing

Programmable metasurfaces with smart control systems have attracted significant attention in recent years owing to their brilliant ability to manipulate electromagnetic (EM) waves without human operation. Among them, those with sensing capabilities further enhance the intelligence and adaptability, paving the way for the future communication era. However, many of the existing works only focus on the sensing and processing of one single physical parameter, which limits the applications in intelligent scenarios. Herein, a smart metasurface platform that can sense multiple spatial information is proposed, and EM waves under multipolarization depending on the spatial status of an external object in a noncontact and self‐adaptive way are manipulated. The status information of the target is captured by a ranging module, and the control system drives the programmable metasurface to realize different EM functions, including automatic beam collimation, adaptive beam broadening, and external object recognition and cloaking. All the adaptive functions have been verified by the simulated and measured results. This work sets up a new paradigm for smart metasurfaces, which is expected to have extensive applications in advanced EM devices and communication systems.