Next Generation Mobile Networking

Metasurface has recently emerged as an economic solution to expand mmWave coverage. However, their pervasive deployment remains a challenge, mainly due to the difficulty in achieving real-time NR-compatible wireless reconfiguration while maintaining multi-year battery life. Our system presents the first intelligent metasurface that offers (i) real-time reconfiguration (ii) compliance with the NR standard and (iii) micropower operation 2.1-year lifetime on an AA battery. Our system supports diverse NR usage scenarios achieving 22.2dB gain under dynamic blockages and mobility patterns. Our system is an end-to-end system consisting of the metasurface and wireless interface, which leverages a low-duty-cycling algorithm uniquely built on the sight that the reconfiguration is periodic.

• [USENIX NSDI'24] NR-Surface: NextG-ready µW-reconfigurable mmWave Metasurface