C-Band Two-Dimensional Dynamic Metasurface Antenna for Through-the-Wall Computational Imaging

This contribution presents the design of a two-dimensional (2D) dynamic metasurface antenna (DMA) for a through-the-wall computational imaging system. The use of C-band is intended to achieve enough penetration capabilities to image different types of wall. The 2D DMA comprises a set of randomly distributed dynamically tunable unit cells which can be activated and deactivated by switching off and on PIN diodes. This reconfigurability enables to generate quasi-orthogonal radiation patterns, or measurement modes, to encode the information of the area under inspection and compress it into a reduced number of channels. The imaging performance of the proposed imaging system was validated through electromagnetic simulations considering two metallic patches placed in front of the DMA panels as test targets and a scenario with and without a wall. Results show that, even when a significantly reduced number of radiation patterns is considered, targets concealed behind a simple wall can be accurately imaged.