Advanced Wave Manipulation for Smart EM Environment through Static Passive Skins

The possibility to manipulate the propagation of waves through two-dimensional inexpensive devices installed opportunistically is one of the cornerstones of the Smart Electromagnetic Environment (SEME) vision. As a matter of fact, the availability of such technology opens the path to a wide range of opportunities for wireless network designers in terms of coverage improvement, obstacle bypassing, signal-to-noise-ratio enhancement, and quality-of-service upgrade without the need of installing new base stations or access points. Such an innovative paradigm in wireless systems design and planning has gathered a lot of attention both from the academic and from the industrial viewpoint owing to its potentialities in terms of energy efficiency and reduction of radio-frequency emission, scalability, and cost mitigation when introducing innovative services.