About the project
This project will explore the combination of Stacked Intelligent Metasurfaces (SIM) and Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) in the next-generation Space-Air-Ground Integrated Network (SAGIN).
Stacked Intelligent Metasurfaces (SIM) are composed of multiple layers of programmable meta-atoms that can dynamically manipulate electromagnetic (EM) waves as they propagate through them. Each meta-atom acts as a reconfigurable artificial neuron with tunable weights—drawing a strong parallel with Deep Neural Networks (DNNs), but Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are no longer required. This architecture enables real-time wireless computing such as beamforming and Fourier transform to be performed at the speed of light, as EM wave propagates through multiple layers of metasurfaces.
Space-Air-Ground Integrated Network (SAGIN) is a promising candidate for providing ubiquitous coverage in 6G. However, SAGIN still faces a dual challenge: longer communication ranges and higher vehicle speeds lead to increased delay spreads and Doppler shifts, which result in inter-symbol interference (in the time domain) and inter-carrier interference (in the frequency domain).
Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) overcomes these issues by transforming doubly dispersive channels in the time-frequency domain into quasi-static representations in the delay-Doppler (DD) domain, making it highly promising for SAGINs.
This project will explore the combination of SIM and OTFS in the context of SAGIN applications.
Programmable beamforming, waveform generation and detection, Integrated Communication and Sensing (ISAC) functionalities will be explored.
DNN solutions that can backward reprogram SIM will also be investigated.
This project will be supervised by Dr Chao Xu, who’s the first researcher from the University of Southampton to achieve the highest score 100/100 in the EU’s Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) fellowship proposal evaluation.