A Wideband Beamforming Algorithm for Dynamic Metasurface Antennas Under Realistic Constraints

A dynamic metasurface antenna (DMA) is a slottedwaveguide antenna with tunable components that allow for beamforming with low power consumption. The resonant frequencies of the individual DMA slot elements are reconfigurable, which can be leveraged for wideband communications to support larger bandwidths. The vast majority of prior work on DMAs focuses on narrowband applications for DMAs. In this paper, we develop a beamforming algorithm to improve the performance of a multicarrier DMA-based wireless system with large signal bandwidths. We build upon prior DMA signal models to incorporate different frequency-selective aspects of the physical DMA elements, and investigate the impact of different DMA designs on wideband performance. We find that the proposed beamforming algorithm outperforms a baseline beamforming algorithm in terms of spectral efficiency and data rates under significant frequencyselectivity in the multi-carrier channel and DMA elements.