New metamaterial with unusual reflective property could boost your Wi-Fi signal

The first thing many of us learn about Wi-Fi and other wireless protocols is that it’s half-duplex, which means devices can’t send and receive signals simultaneously without collision and signal loss. This new proof of concept recently published by researchers at the University of Toronto seeks to solve that capacity issue with a full-duplex solution.

I’ll leave you with a quote that is simultanously almost too technical to understand, and VERY exciting.

“Tunable, asymmetric radiation beams in both the reception and transmission states have incredible potential to address some of the most pressing and major challenges in the wireless communication industry,” says Sethi. “By spatially decoupling the receive and transmit paths, we can create ‘true full-duplex systems’ that can support bidirectional communication at the same time and the same frequency. This will allow LATYS products and prototypes to gain an edge over competition and much traction, especially in radio-hostile environments such as industrial automation, IIOT and 5G applications.”

Materials science is so amazing.