M.Sc. Li Yueheng

The programmable metasurface designed in METABEAM project is proved to be a promising architecture in wireless communication system. The flexible generation of steerable narrow beams can be electronically controlled similar as a phased array. For the conventional usage of metasurface, one feeding antenna is placed as the illumination source for signal transmission. In this case, several receivers get identical signal at the same time. This is not always a proper case since usually different receivers require different data of interests (assume that two different families will not watch the same movie in the meantime).  As a solution, a TDMA system dividing transmit signal into different frames based on time intervals can be implemented. Combining with the fast beam steering offered by the metasurface, users located at different positions are able to receive their desired signals.  The goal of this work is to demonstrate this communication scenario.

Working steps and challenges:

1. Understanding the basic concepts of TDMA and metasurface beamforming system.
2. Understanding, practicing and implementing the current online signal processing codes and measurement setup.
3. General codes writing using the GNU Radio software overlay for TDMA purposes.
4. Further improve the system to achieve the maximum performance. For example, fastest beam switch speed, efficiency of the system considering latency, signal receiving mismatch and bit error rate.
5. Possible algorithms for broadcast communication systems.

Preferable basic knowledge:

1. Communication technology background such as digital signal processing and basics of radio frequency system.
2. Python or C++ program basics.
3. Interest of hardware measurements and patience of solve practical troubles.