Designing, building, and characterizing RF switch-based reconfigurable intelligent surfaces
Marco Rossanese, Placido Mursia, Andrés García‐Saavedra, Vincenzo Sciancalepore, Arash Asadi, Xavier Costa‐Pérez
Abstract
In this paper, we present our experience designing, prototyping, and empirically characterizing RF Switch-based Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS). Our RIS design comprises arrays of patch antennas, delay lines and programmable radio-frequency (RF) switches that enable almost-passive 3D beamforming, i.e., without active RF components. We implement this design using PCB technology and low-cost electronic components, and thoroughly validate our prototype in a controlled environment with high spatial resolution codebooks. Finally, we make available a large dataset with a complete characterization of our RIS and present the costs associated with reproducing our design.