Lingyang Song

Title: Reconfigurable Holographic Surfaces: A New Paradigm to Ultra-Massive MIMO for 6G

Abstract: To enable a ubiquitous intelligent information network, the forthcoming 6G wireless communications are expected to provide revolutionary mobile connectivity and high-throughput data services through ultra-massive MIMO. Widely-utilized phased arrays relying on costly components make the implementation of ultra-massive MIMO in practice become prohibitive from both cost and power consumption perspectives. To address this issue, we propose reconfigurable holographic surfaces (RHSs), which compose of densely packing sub-wavelength metamaterial elements. The RHS can achieve holographic beamforming without costly hardware components. By leveraging the holographic principle, the RHS serves as an ultra-thin and lightweight surface antenna integrated with the transceiver, thereby providing a promising alternative to phased arrays. In this keynote talk, we will first introduce the unique features of RHSs which enable ultra-massive MIMO for both communication and sensing, in a comprehensive way. Typical RHS-based applications for both wireless communications and radio-frequency sensing will be explored. Formalized analysis of several up-to-date challenges and technical details on system design will be provided for different applications.

Bio: Lingyang Song is a Boya Distinguished Professor at Peking University, where he directs the Institute of Information and Communication Technology. He received his PhD from the University of York, UK. He worked as a research fellow at the University of Oslo, Norway, and then rejoined Philips Research in UK as a senior research scientist.

He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and conferences and received many Best Paper Awards, including IEEE Communications Society Leonard G. Abraham Prize, IEEE Communications Society Heinrich Hertz Award, IEEE Communications Society Asia Pacific Outstanding Paper Award, IEEE ICC, IEEE Globecom 2014, ACM MobiHoc, etc. His h-index is 81, with a total citation exceeding 22,000 according to Google Scholar. He is a Fellow of IEEE.

He has been elected to serve the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Board of Governors. He has served as a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Communications Society, Area Editor of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Chair of IEEE Communications Society Cognitive Network Technical Committee, and Vice Director of IEEE Communications Society Asia Pacific Board.