Coded Intelligent Surface Design for Generalized Beamspace Modulation in Massive MIMO Communications Systems

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems have been proposed to support high rates in next-generation 5G and 6G wireless networks. Recently, index modulation (IM) techniques have attracted significant interest for their potential to meet strict energy efficiency (EE) and spectral efficiency (SE) requirements of these networks. As a form of an low-cost IM for uplink scenarios with mobile stations (MS), the generalized beamspace modulation (GBM) exploits lens antenna arrays for achieving substantially increased data rates with a very small number of radio-frequency chains. However, realizing low-cost and low-form factor antennas with versatile beamforming capabilities remains a challenge. In this paper, we propose reconfigurable metasurface (R-MTS) design to implement GBM for wireless communications. Our full-wave electromagnetic simulations demonstrate system feasibility to deploy arbitrary beam steering achieved with much lower hardware footprint than the lens arrays.