Experimental Study of RCS Diversity with Novel No-divergent OAM Beams

This research proposes a novel approach utilizing Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) beams to enhance Radar Cross Section (RCS) diversity for target detection in future transportation systems. Unlike conventional OAM beams with hollow-shaped divergence patterns, the new proposed OAM beams provide uniform illumination across the target without a central energy void, but keep the inherent phase gradient of vortex property. We utilize waveguide slot antennas to generate four different modes of these novel OAM beams at X-band frequency. Furthermore, these different mode OAM beams are used to illuminate metal models, and the resulting RCS is compared with that obtained using plane waves. The findings reveal that the novel OAM beams produce significant azimuthal RCS diversity, providing a new approach for the detection of weak and small targets.This study not only reveals the RCS diversity phenomenon based on novel OAM beams of different modes but also addresses the issue of energy divergence that hinders traditional OAM beams in long-range detection applications.

Innovative RIS Prototyping Enhancing Wireless Communication with Real-Time Spot Beam Tracking and OAM Wavefront Manipulation

This paper presents a sophisticated reconfigurable metasurface architecture that introduces an advanced concept of flexible full-array space-time wavefront manipulation with enhanced dynamic capabilities. The practical 2-bit phase-shifting unit cell on the RIS is distinguished by its ability to maintain four stable phase states, each with ${90^ \circ }$ differences, and features an insertion loss of less than 0.6 dB across a bandwidth of 200 MHz. All reconfigurable units are equipped with meticulously designed control circuits, governed by an intelligent core composed of multiple Micro-Controller Units (MCUs), enabling rapid control response across the entire RIS array. Owing to the capability of each unit cell on the metasurface to independently switch states, the entire RIS is not limited to controlling general beams with specific directional patterns, but also generates beams with more complex structures, including multi-focus 3D spot beams and vortex beams. This development substantially broadens its applicability across various industrial wireless transmission scenarios. Moreover, by leveraging the rapid-respond space-time coding and the full-array independent programmability of the RIS prototyping operating at 10.7 GHz, we have demonstrated that: 1) The implementation of 3D spot beams scanning facilitates dynamic beam tracking and real-time communication under the indoor near-field scenario; 2) The rapid wavefront rotation of vortex beams enables precise modulation of signals within the Doppler domain, showcasing an innovative approach to wireless signal manipulation; 3) The beam steering experiments for blocking users under outdoor far-field scenarios, verifying the beamforming capability of the RIS board.