Self-Programmable Metasurface Networks for Wireless Communications and IoT

The overarching goal of this multi-university international effort is to develop and advance the fundamental science necessary to enable the next generation of communication networks that rely on ubiquitously distributed intelligent metasurfaces, leveraging network complexity and social concepts to disruptively advance the relevant performance metrics for communication and information processing. Achieving this vision requires a holistic, cross-disciplinary approach, which combines new concepts from electrical engineering, material science, physics, mathematics and social sciences. Our team will build on recent breakthroughs in the integration of: (i) active, nonlinear, programmable and time-varying elements in metasurfaces; (ii) new material platforms for the extension to higher frequencies; (iii) adhoc optimization algorithms to exploit these hardware advances; (iv) human-machine interaction models integrated with hardware and algorithms.