Nature-Inspired Optimization of Aperiodic Metasurfaces for Antenna Beam-shaping

Partially Reflective Surfaces (PRS) are highly reflective metasurfaces that are well-suited in the design of antennas for beamforming and high gain wireless applications, particularly in the mm-wave regime. Periodic PRS, made of uniformly spaced elements, however, limits the design of the antenna with regard to the trade-off between gain, sidelobe level, or achieving a prescribed arbitrary pattern. Aperiodic PRS, made of non-uniformly spaced inclusions provide more degrees of freedom in antenna synthesis and design. In this work we investigate optimal design of aperiodic PRS for various antenna functionality using several nature inspired global optimization techniques. Numerical examples and experimental verification of a prototype for achieving a shaped beam pattern is given.