Towards 6G and Beyond: Smarten Everything with Metamorphic Surfaces

Abstract

6G is on the horizon. A key paradigm being proposed for 6G involves a shift from device-centric to user-centric services, i.e., multiple devices collaborate to serve user demands. This paradigm shift and the potential applications require handling wireless signals from multiple sources collectively in a 3D space and potentially at close proximity to the end user. Conventional approaches of optimizing individual communication endpoints are ill-suited to collaborative 3D signal shaping. Recent smart surface proposals to program the radio environments appear a better fit, but existing designs implicitly require planar, rigid substrates. Optimizing 3D coverage would require very large surface implementations and incur many scalability and deployment challenges. In this paper, therefore, we propose a notion of metamorphic smart surfaces, i.e., shape-changing smart surfaces to cater to complex 3D propagation environments. Based on early explorations with HFSS simulations and two simple prototypes, we discuss the pros and cons of metamorphic surfaces and potential future directions.