Could Smart Electromagnetic Skins Play a Key Role in mmWave Wireless Communications Deployment?
This work investigates the potential of fully passive Smart Electromagnetic Skins (SES) to mitigate blind spots in mmWave network deployments. Unlike Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS), SES lack post-deployment reconfigurability but offer pre-shaped radiation patterns that can extend coverage...
| Autores: | , , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2026 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Oviedo (UNIOVI) |
| Repositorio: | RUO. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Oviedo |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:dnet:ruo_________::54ab491e032d6cfec2c6ea1dc1766c51 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/10651/84064 https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MCOM.001.2500594 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Frequency Range 2 (FR2) fully passive Smart Electromagnetic Skins (SES) millimeter-Wave (mmWave) communications Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) |
| Sumario: | This work investigates the potential of fully passive Smart Electromagnetic Skins (SES) to mitigate blind spots in mmWave network deployments. Unlike Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS), SES lack post-deployment reconfigurability but offer pre-shaped radiation patterns that can extend coverage to static, time-invariant blind spots. This design offers key advantages, including low cost, simplified deployment and most importantly, without the need for a power supply or active circuitry. The proposed solution is illustrated in a real indoor environment using a 5G FR2-1 frequency channel (24.25–24.65 GHz), where a manufactured SES is positioned within the illumination zone of a highly directive beam emitted by a base station (BS) antenna to extend its coverage. The coverage performance is evaluated through simulations and measurements. Furthermore, over-the-air experimental trials with a testbed based on Software-Defined Radio (SDR) validate the communication link across single-user and two-user Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) scenarios with Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) and Symbol Error Rate (SER) measurements. The results outlined in this work demonstrate the potential applicability of SES for mitigating static blind spots, offering a cost-effective solution that complements RIS in scenarios where reconfigurability is not strictly necessary, such as certain indoor environments. |
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