Metasurface-Enabled Superheterodyne Transmitter With Decoupled Harmonic-Free Signal Generation and Precoding
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866914160185442304 |
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| author | Dong, Xuehui Feng, Miyu Shao, Chen Lai, Bokai Zhang, Jianan Xiong, Rujing Wan, Kai Mi, Tiebin Qiu, Robert Caiming |
| author_facet | Dong, Xuehui Feng, Miyu Shao, Chen Lai, Bokai Zhang, Jianan Xiong, Rujing Wan, Kai Mi, Tiebin Qiu, Robert Caiming |
| contents | The evolution of programmable metasurfaces (PM) from passive beamforming to active information transmission marks a paradigm shift for next-generation wireless systems. However, this transition is hindered by fundamental limitations in conventional metasurface transmitter architectures, including restricted modulation orders, symbol-level spatial inconsistency, and significant harmonic interference. These issues stem from the intrinsic coupling between baseband signal processing and radio-frequency beamforming in monolithic designs reliant on simplistic switching mechanisms. This paper proposes a novel metasurface-enabled superheterodyne architecture (MSA) that fundamentally decouples these functionalities. The MSA introduces a dual-stage up-conversion process, comprising a digital up-conversion module for in-phase/quadrature modulation and baseband-to-intermediate frequency conversion, a precoder module for precoding, and a custom-designed magnitude-phase-decoupled metasurface that acts as a reconfigurable reflective mixer array. This decoupling of harmonic-free waveform generation from spatial precoding overcomes the critical drawbacks of existing approaches. Experimental results from a 5.8 GHz proof-of-concept prototype system validate the MSA's superior performance. The system generates spatially isotropic constellations for arbitrary-order QAM modulations, ensures consistent time-frequency signatures for applications like Doppler-spoofing, and achieves data rates up to 20 Mbps within a linear operating region that minimizes nonlinear distortion. The capability of employing spatial diversity and multi-stream interference cancellation has been demonstrated for the first time in a PM-based transmitter. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_12469 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Metasurface-Enabled Superheterodyne Transmitter With Decoupled Harmonic-Free Signal Generation and Precoding Dong, Xuehui Feng, Miyu Shao, Chen Lai, Bokai Zhang, Jianan Xiong, Rujing Wan, Kai Mi, Tiebin Qiu, Robert Caiming Information Theory The evolution of programmable metasurfaces (PM) from passive beamforming to active information transmission marks a paradigm shift for next-generation wireless systems. However, this transition is hindered by fundamental limitations in conventional metasurface transmitter architectures, including restricted modulation orders, symbol-level spatial inconsistency, and significant harmonic interference. These issues stem from the intrinsic coupling between baseband signal processing and radio-frequency beamforming in monolithic designs reliant on simplistic switching mechanisms. This paper proposes a novel metasurface-enabled superheterodyne architecture (MSA) that fundamentally decouples these functionalities. The MSA introduces a dual-stage up-conversion process, comprising a digital up-conversion module for in-phase/quadrature modulation and baseband-to-intermediate frequency conversion, a precoder module for precoding, and a custom-designed magnitude-phase-decoupled metasurface that acts as a reconfigurable reflective mixer array. This decoupling of harmonic-free waveform generation from spatial precoding overcomes the critical drawbacks of existing approaches. Experimental results from a 5.8 GHz proof-of-concept prototype system validate the MSA's superior performance. The system generates spatially isotropic constellations for arbitrary-order QAM modulations, ensures consistent time-frequency signatures for applications like Doppler-spoofing, and achieves data rates up to 20 Mbps within a linear operating region that minimizes nonlinear distortion. The capability of employing spatial diversity and multi-stream interference cancellation has been demonstrated for the first time in a PM-based transmitter. |
| title | Metasurface-Enabled Superheterodyne Transmitter With Decoupled Harmonic-Free Signal Generation and Precoding |
| topic | Information Theory |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.12469 |