Towards a 1-Bit Modulated Wireless Sensing System Utilizing Unique Capabilities of RIS

Wireless sensing has attracted significant attention from wireless communication researchers. Similarly, the concept of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) has been in development for a variety of applications in the next generation of wireless technology. In this paper, the beamforming capability of RIS is studied for an electromagnetic (EM) sensing scenario. A pair of transmitter and receiver antennas along with an RIS panel operating in the 7.5 - 8.5 GHz frequency band is used in the sensing setup. The utilized RIS panel is designed based on a unit cell topology that provides beamforming capabilities over a wide frequency band, while simultaneously offering polarization agnostic, stable reflection response under high angle of TE and TM incidence modes. In this work, as an initial demonstration, the beamforming property of RIS is utilized to sweep the reflected beam in θ and ϕ to illuminate a target in an all-electronic manner. Preliminary results from full-wave simulation studies demonstrate that the setup is able to detect objects in θ and ϕ space.