Energy-Efficient Tri-Hybrid Precoding with Dynamic Metasurface Antennas
Miguel R. Castellanos, Joseph Carlson, Robert W. Heath
Abstract
Dynamic metasurface antennas (DMA) are smart leaky-wave antennas that enable low-power beamforming, albeit with particular constraints. In this paper, we develop algorithms to configure a tri-hybrid architecture that combines digital, analog, and DMA precoding. Our optimization prioritizes low power consumption to determine the most energy-efficient configurations of precoding weights. Further, we integrate the unique characteristics of the DMA architecture, such as the limited beamforming weight distribution and waveguide propagation, to generate jointly optimized precoding weights for a realistic DMA design. The key metrics of analysis are spectral and energy efficiency results to determine tradeoffs in performance between increased data rates and power consumption.