Digitally Coded Reflector at 140 GHz Targeted for 6G Communications

The sixth generation (6G) communications is expected to involve the use of the sub-Terahertz. Electromagnetic waves in this band is vulnerable to blockages by physical obstacles, besides the severe limitation of coverage area compared to in conventional microwave communications. Reconfigurable reflectors is one of the promising solutions in mitigating these limitations, as its reflection properties can be designed to redirect incident waves to a desired arbitrary direction, extending range and coverage. This study experimentally demonstrates the design and performance of a set of digitally coded reflectors in improving the wireless link at 140 GHz. These reflectors consists of unit cells which have been designed and optimized on low loss Megtron-7 substrates. Experimental validations of the optimized reflector indicated good agreements with simulations. The use of these reflectors showed 24 dB improvement in signal strength compared to a propagation scenario without such reflectors, demonstrating the significance of this solution.