Electronic Warfare in a World Populated by Metasurfaces

In the last decades, Electronic Warfare (EW) evolved from a simple clash between static systems to a highly complex combat framework with plenty of reconfigurable systems optimizing their tasks on the fly. Today, one can consider that the platforms, which interact with electromagnetic waves, and the EW environment, which works as the communication channel, are electronically static. In this scenario, reconfigurability is essentially performed by software modules and the radio hardware they control. This webinar describes how metasurfaces can add extra layers of dynamism to the core of the EW problem–including the platforms and the environment itself.

Metasurfaces are artificially engineered structures composed of unit cells that can be polarized when excited by electromagnetic waves. The subwavelength dimensions of the unit cells allow the structure to be treated as an effective surface impedance. Moreover, their resonating nature allows one to obtain arbitrary reflection, transmission, and absorption coefficients from each cell, unlocking the dynamic shaping of electromagnetic waves. In some years, metasurfaces will be deployed everywhere in the cities and the ordinary man will get used to them. Unavoidably, they will be also extensively exploited for military purposes.