Wireless connectivity has become a pillar of our society. The growth in wireless traffic is unstoppable and is forecast to reach 5,016 exabytes by 2030, with bit rates of the order of 1Tb/s and new services related to detection, localization, low latency and ultra-reliability. While the performance of wireless networks has improved dramatically in recent decades, advances and mechanisms that have maintained these huge improvements are starting to dwindle.

MetaWireless is one of the ten selected projects in Catalonia as an Innovative Training Network (ITN) Marie Sklodowska-Curie, in the European Commission’s ITN MSC Actions call.  The project is coordinated by the CNIT (Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni) which involves Àngel Lozano, coordinator of the Wireless & Secure Communications research group at the UPF Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC). MetaWireless has emerged with the idea that new breakthroughs are required to ensure that the expected growth in wireless connectivity can become a reality. 

Until now, all wireless systems have respected the premise that the radio propagation channel is set by nature and cannot be altered and that it can only be compensated through increasingly sophisticated transmission/reception systems. A potential turning point for 6G networks and beyond is to move away from this hypothesis.

MetaWireless pursues the disruptive idea of designing wireless networks around the environment itself as something capable of being controlled and optimized.

With this vision, MetaWireless pursues the disruptive idea of designing wireless networks using the environment as something capable of being controlled and optimized. The manipulation of the wireless environment can be enabled by incorporating reconfigurable intelligent surfaces.

These surfaces are flat, electromagnetically discontinuous structures made of metamaterials that do not adhere to the conventional laws of reflection and diffraction; rather, it is possible to controllably modify the wave phase and front of the radio waves that affect it. If deployed to coat objects, walls or facades, they could allow customizing in real-time the electromagnetic response of environments. The idea is to use new materials that have controllable electromagnetic properties to manipulate the propagation of radio waves in the environments in which we live and work.

The idea is to use new materials that have controllable electromagnetic properties to manipulate the propagation of radio waves in the environments in which we live and work

As Àngel Lozano, principal investigator of the project at UPF, explains: “Let us imagine, for example, the WiFi signal at home. It exits the router and bounces off several walls before (more or less debilitated) reaching your computer or phone. At the same time, by bouncing elsewhere it reaches your neighbour's house. Conversely, the signal of the neighbour’s router also reaches us after several rebounds. All in all, the signal we want arrives more or less weak, with a great deal of interference and deteriorated service. Our idea is to control how the different surfaces bounce signals so that each one reaches its destination strong and without any interference. This is a very simple example. In the project we will deal with systems with many concurrent users, such as the UPF campus, or 5G-type public systems directly”, he adds.

An innovative training network of the European Commission

For this vision to become a reality requires the training of a new generation of researchers and a multidisciplinary effort involving wireless communications, physics, electromagnetic theory and computational learning, which are the ingredients that define the MetaWireless project.

The innovative training networks (ITN) aim to train a new generation of researchers in their early stages who are creative, enterprising and innovative, capable of dealing with the challenges of the future and turn knowledge and ideas into products and services with an economic and a social benefit. ITN programmes within the framework of the European Commission’s Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions support joint competitive programmes for training in research or joint doctorates. These programmes will be implemented by partnerships of universities, research centres, businesses, SMEs and other stakeholders in Europe and the rest of the world.

Reference project:

META WIRELESS. Marie Sklodowska-Curie ITN Network Actions of the European Commission

Coordinator: Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni (CNIT) 

IP-UPF: Àngel Lozano 

UPF funding: €261,499.68

Consortium funding: €3,922,495.20