Compact Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface with Phase-Gradient Coded Beam Steering and Controlled Substrate Loss

Abstract

This paper presents a 1-bit reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) fabricated using a three-layer structure. It employs a manual layer stackup incorporating an optimal air gap to reduce the effective dielectric losses while using a low-cost FR4 substrate. The new design of the unit cells of the proposed RIS is outlined, with each unit cell featuring a PIN-diode-based, compact, simplified biasing network that simplifies the control circuit while maintaining distinct $\boldsymbol{0^\circ/180^\circ \pm 20^\circ}$ phase states between ON/OFF conditions. The designed RIS is in the form of a $\boldsymbol{10\times10}$ array with a compact size of $\boldsymbol{2.9\lambda_g \times 2.9\lambda_g}$. Additionally, a phase-gradient coding scheme is presented and utilized that achieves measured beam steering up to $\boldsymbol{\pm30^\circ}$ in both anechoic and noisy environments. Controlled and driven by an Arduino-cum-digital interface, the proposed RIS exhibits measured reflected wave gain enhancement of about 9\,dB over an incident wave angular range of $\boldsymbol{\pm 30^\circ}$. Furthermore, the design is also experimentally validated by transmitting quadrature phase-shift keying-modulated symbols via the RIS-assisted wireless channel. The proposed RIS works for the range 3.38--3.67\,GHz (8.3\%), and is suitable for deployment for the 5G n78 \mbox{band (3.5\,GHz).}