Intelligent Omni-Surfaces for Full-Dimensional Wireless Communications: Principles, Technology, and Implementation
Open accessAbstract
The recent development of metasurfaces has motivated their potential use for improving the performance of wireless communication networks by manipulating the propagation environment through nearly passive sub-wavelength scattering elements arranged on a surface. However, most studies of this technology focus on reflective metasurfaces, that is, the surface reflects the incident signals toward receivers located on the same side of the transmitter, which restricts the coverage to one side of the surface. In this article, we introduce the concept of an intelligent omni-surface (IOS), which is able to serve mobile users on both sides of the surface to achieve full-dimensional communications by jointly engineering its reflective and refractive properties. The working principle of the IOS is introduced, and a novel hybrid beamforming scheme is proposed for IOS-based wireless communications. Moreover, we present a prototype of IOS-based wireless communications and report experimental results. Furthermore, potential applications of IOSs to wireless communications together with relevant research challenges are discussed.
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Numerical results have demonstrated that STAR-RISs and IOSs can significantly extend the service coverage of a base station compared to conventional transmitting/reflecting-only RISs.
“Numerical results have demonstrated that STAR-RISs and IOSs can significantly extend the service coverage of a BS compared to conventional transmitting/reflecting-only RISs.”
From Emerging Technologies in Intelligent Metasurfaces: Shaping the Future of Wireless Communications (2026) · cites this paper as [63]
The Abstract in our indexed copy says reflective surfaces restrict coverage to one side, whereas an IOS can serve users on both sides. That supports the coverage advantage for IOSs, but the available passages do not report numerical results or establish the claim for STAR-RISs or transmitting-only RISs. (LLM, conf=0.82)
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Emerging Technologies in Intelligent Metasurfaces: Shaping the Future of Wireless Communications
An, J., Debbah, M., Cui, T. J., Chen, Z. N., & Yuen, C. (2026) · IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation · doi:10.1109/tap.2025.3571069 · Cited by 72 · see citing works
“Similarly, Zhang et al. [63], [64] introduced the concept of intelligent omni-surface (IOS) and presented a relevant prototype.”
Self-citationFlexible Intelligent Metasurfaces for Enhancing MIMO Communications
An, J., Han, Z., Niyato, D., Debbah, M., Yuen, C., & Hanzo, L. (2025) · IEEE Transactions on Communications · doi:10.1109/tcomm.2025.3550318 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Self-citationDownlink Multiuser Communications Relying on Flexible Intelligent Metasurfaces
An, J., Yuen, C., Di Renzo, M., Debbah, M., Poor, H. V., & Hanzo, L. (2024) · GLOBECOM 2024 - 2024 IEEE Global Communications Conference · doi:10.1109/globecom52923.2024.10901792 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Self-citationEmerging Technologies in Intelligent Metasurfaces: Shaping the Future of Wireless Communications
An, J., Debbah, M., Cui, T. J., Chen, Z. N., & Yuen, C. (2024) · arXiv · Cited by 72 · see citing works
“Similarly, Zhang et al. [63], [64] introduced the concept of intelligent omni-surface (IOS) and presented a relevant prototype.”
Self-citation
- Authors
- Zhang, H., Zeng, S., Di, B., Tan, Y., Di Renzo, M., Debbah, M., Han, Z., Poor, H. V., & Song, L.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Peking University (CN)
- Universié Paris-Saclay,France
- Technology Innovation Institute (AE)
- University of Houston (US)
- ORCID
- Venue
- IEEE Communications Magazine
- Published
- 2022-02
- Volume
- 60
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 39-45
- ISSN
- 0163-6804 (ISSN-L)
- 1558-1896
- OpenAlex
- W4214587758
- Cited by
- 218
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 43 · 2024: 70 · 2023: 50 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 3
- FWCI
- 13.76
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hal.science
- Licence
- Locations
- IEEE Communications Magazine (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (61931019,61941101,62032003)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Advanced Wireless Communication Technologies
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Aerospace Engineering › Advanced Antenna and Metasurface Technologies
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Millimeter-Wave Propagation and Modeling
- Keywords
- intelligent omni-surfaces, metasurfaces, hybrid beamforming, reflective metasurface, wireless networks, beam steering, prototype implementation
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