Eliminating Blind Spots from Wireless Network by Metasurface: A Blind Approach

Abstract

Deploying metasurfaces (MTSs) to eliminate wireless blind spots requires jointly determining the physical placement of MTSs and the meta-atom phase shifts. Existing methods typically rely on explicit channel estimation, which incurs prohibitive overhead and is often intractable in real-world networks. To sidestep this bottleneck, we propose RFZero, a channel-state-information (CSI)-free deployment paradigm. Instead of estimating channels, RFZero extracts macro-environmental features from visual photos to guide MTS placement, and leverages reference signal received power (RSRP) feedback for dynamic phase-shift optimization. Most importantly, RFZero operates independently of base stations, thereby enabling seamless plug-and-play implementation. Real-world field tests confirm that RFZero completely eliminates all blind spots in a $100\text{ m}^2$ indoor area using just a pair of $1.5\text{ m}\times 0.9\text{ m}$ MTSs.