Collaborative Research: Reconfigurable Intelligent Electromagnetic Surface Using Magnetic Shape Memory Polymers

合作研究：使用磁性形状记忆聚合物的可重构智能电磁表面

• 批准号: 2300157
• 负责人: Ruike Renee Zhao
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2026-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2300157&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Reconfigurable; Intelligent; Electromagnetic

The ability to dynamically manipulate electromagnetic waves by a flat aperture will lead to the realization of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS). This vision includes implementing such reconfigurable surfaces at cell tower base stations to increase capacity and serve more users for 5G and beyond wireless systems in both outdoor and indoor settings. Moreover, dynamic and arbitrary manipulation of electromagnetic wavefronts is an exciting and versatile tool for next-generation wireless communication, imaging, holography, surveillance, and sensing applications. Reconfigurability or programmability is a vital feature of such future agile radio frequency systems. Reconfigurable devices or circuits (e.g., diodes and variable capacitors) have been used in such smart systems to control radiation pattern, polarization, or operating frequency. This project investigates a new approach of using programmable soft materials, for the first time, on RIS. The new approach offers unique advantages over the state-of-art technologies. This project is an interdisciplinary and collaborative effort between the mmWave Antennas and Arrays Laboratory (School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology) and the Soft Intelligent Materials Laboratory (Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University).The research of this project is transformative as it challenges the conventional methods that have been applied to control RIS and reconfigure those wireless systems using them. The new approach is based on a viable mechanical reconfiguration method using shape memory polymers and magnetic actuation. Thus, unlike other state-of-the-art technologies, semiconductor switching devices such as diodes are no longer needed inside each unit cell. The advantage of this global reconfiguration method becomes even more important for large intelligent surfaces. In contrast to traditional reconfiguration schemes that use semiconductor devices such as diodes, the new architecture utilizes a unique and purely mechanical deformation that does not suffer from loss and nonlinearity associated with traditional semiconductor devices. In this project, researchers will use magnetically responsive soft materials to drive the multimodal mechanical shape reconfigurations of the RIS under an external magnetic field with several tens of millitesla. The project is expected to demonstrate several advantages of the new approach over existing state-of-art technologies, including programmability enabled by magnetic excitation, linearity, scalability, low operating voltage, low loss, and multimodal reconfiguration.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

通过平坦的光圈动态操纵电磁波的能力将导致可重构智能表面（RIS）的实现。该愿景包括在室内和室内设置中为更多的5G和无线系统提供服务，以增加容量，并为更多用户提供帮助，以增加容量，并为更多的用户提供服务。此外，电磁波前的动态和任意操纵是下一代无线通信，成像，全息，监视和传感应用的令人兴奋且通用的工具。可重新配置或可编程性是这种未来敏捷射频系统的重要特征。可重新配置的设备或电路（例如，二极管和可变电容器）已在此类智能系统中用于控制辐射模式，极化或工作频率。该项目首次在RIS上研究了一种新的方法，即首次使用可编程软材料。新方法比出厂技术具有独特的优势。该项目是MMWave天线与阵列实验室（Georgia Technology Institute的电气和计算机工程学院）与软智能材料实验室（斯坦福大学的机械工程系）之间的跨学科和协作努力。该项目对这些项目进行了挑战，这些方法是针对这些项目的转化，以控制这些项目，以控制这些项目，以控制这些项目，以控制这些系统。新方法基于使用形状内存聚合物和磁性致动的可行的机械重新配置方法。因此，与其他最先进的技术不同，每个单位电池内不再需要半导体开关设备（例如二极管）。对于大型智能表面，这种全球重新配置方法的优势变得更加重要。与使用半导体设备（例如二极管）的传统重新配置方案相反，新建筑采用了独特而纯粹的机械变形，该变形并不遭受与传统半导体设备相关的损失和非线性。在这个项目中，研究人员将使用磁响应的软材料来驱动RI的多模式机械形状重新配置，并在带有数十毫米的外部磁场下驱动RIS的多模式形状。预计该项目将证明这种新方法比现有的最新技术有几个优势，包括通过磁激发，线性，线性，可伸缩性，低操作性电压，低损耗和多模式重新配置来实现的可编程性。这奖反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基础的智力效果和宽阔的范围来评估支持，并被视为值得评估。

项目成果

Mechanics of hard-magnetic soft materials: A review

• DOI: 10.1016/j.mechmat.2023.104874
• 发表时间: 2023-11
• 期刊: Mechanics of Materials
• 影响因子: 3.9
• 作者: Lu Lu-Lu;Jay Sim;Ruike Renee Zhao

Magneto-Mechanical Metamaterials: A Perspective

• DOI: 10.1115/1.4063816
• 发表时间: 2024-03-01
• 期刊: JOURNAL OF APPLIED MECHANICS-TRANSACTIONS OF THE ASME
• 影响因子: 2.6
• 作者: Sim，Jay;Zhao，Ruike Renee
• 通讯作者: Zhao，Ruike Renee