An externally perceivable smart leaky-wave antenna based on spoof surface plasmon polaritons

Smart antennas have received great attention for their potentials to enable communication and perception functions at the same time. However, realizing the function synthesis remains an open challenge, and most existing system solutions are limited to narrow operating bands and high complexity and cost. Here, we propose an externally perceivable leaky-wave antenna (LWA) based on spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs), which can realize adaptive real-time switching between the “radiating” and “non-radiating” states and beam tracking at different frequencies. With the assistance of computer vision, the smart SSPP-LWA is able to detect the external target user or jammer, and intelligently track the target by self-adjusting the operating frequency. The proposed scheme helps to reduce the power consumption through dynamically controlling the radiating state of the antenna, and improve spectrum utilization and avoid spectrum conflicts through intelligently deciding the radiating frequency. On the other hand, it is also helpful for the physical layer communication security through switching the antenna working state according to the presence of the target and target beam tracking in real time. In addition, the proposed smart antenna can be generalized to other metamaterial systems and could be a candidate for synaesthesia integration in future smart antenna systems.