Holographic MIMO Surfaces for 6G Wireless Networks: Opportunities, Challenges, and Trends

• Published in: IEEE wireless communications Vol. 27; no. 5; pp. 118 - 125
• Main Authors: Huang, Chongwen, Hu, Sha, Alexandropoulos, George C., Zappone, Alessio, Yuen, Chau, Zhang, Rui, Renzo, Marco Di, Debbah, Merouane
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.10.2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE); Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: 6G mobile communication; Antenna arrays; Apertures; Electromagnetic radiation; Electronic devices; Engineering Sciences; Holography; MIMO (control systems); MIMO communication; Network latency; Optical surface waves; Planar structures; Signal and Image processing; Transceivers; Wireless communication; Wireless communications; Wireless networks
• ISSN: 1536-1284; 1558-0687
• DOI: 10.1109/MWC.001.1900534

Future wireless networks are expected to evolve toward an intelligent and software reconfigurable paradigm enabling ubiquitous communications between humans and mobile devices. They will also be capable of sensing, controlling, and optimizing the wireless environment to fulfill the visions of low-power, high-throughput, massively- connected, and low-latency communications. A key conceptual enabler that is recently gaining increasing popularity is the HMIMOS that refers to a low-cost transformative wireless planar structure comprised of sub-wavelength metallic or dielectric scattering particles, which is capable of shaping electromagnetic waves according to desired objectives. In this article, we provide an overview of HMIMOS communications including the available hardware architectures for reconfiguring such surfaces, and highlight the opportunities and key challenges in designing HMIMOS-enabled wireless communications.