A Phase Coded Metasurface for Beamforming Applications in Wireless Communication

A 3-bit phase coded metasurface (PCM) geometry has been designed and demonstrated for beamforming applications in a wireless communication network. The proposed unit cell is comprised of a square metallic patch printed on a grounded dielectric substrate, and based on its reflection response, 8 different variants are considered to generate the overall PCM structure, such that it can redirect the reflected signal towards +30° direction for a normally incident electromagnetic (EM) wave at 5 GHz. A prototype has been fabricated, and its EM characteristics have been measured by developing a testbed. The prototype exhibits significantly improved power levels at the desired direction as compared to a metal plate, while examining under different modulation schemes (BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, and 64-QAM). In addition, reduced bit error rate, higher signal to noise ratio, and large point of separation in constellation diagram are observed for all the modulation schemes. Therefore, the proposed geometry can potentially be useful in various 5 G communication networks.