Chongfan Technology
News
15
2026
-
06
Closed-Loop Optically Controlled Metasurface for Autonomous Drone Tracking
Author:
A team from the Air Force Engineering University—comprising Jiafu Wang, Xiaolin Zhao, and Ruichao Zhu—and a team from the Changchun Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led by Ce Song, have proposed an adaptive, programmable metasurface system based on LED‑array control. The system integrates an LED array, a programmable metasurface, a GPS positioning module, and a processor, forming a closed-loop control architecture. By incorporating photoresistors as active elements within the metasurface’s constituent units, the system can leverage real-time location data obtained from the GPS module to determine the drone’s coordinates, generate corresponding encoding sequences, and thereby drive the LED array to produce appropriate illumination patterns. To validate the system’s performance, the authors built a prototype and conducted experimental tests encompassing near-field focusing and wireless communication. Measurement results demonstrate that the proposed metasurface can dynamically steer the radiation direction and adjust the gain of electromagnetic beams, effectively achieving near-field focusing on a drone target. Ultimately, this work establishes a fully adaptive metasurface system grounded in a “perception–decision–response” framework, paving the way for applications in areas such as information transmission, directional communication, and adaptive intelligent sensing.
The research findings were published on June 7, 2026, in Laser & Photonics Reviews, under the title “A Closed-Loop Light-Controlled Metasurface Enabling Autonomous UAV Tracking From Perception to Beam Steering.”
Figure 1: Schematic diagram illustrating the operating principle and applications of an adaptive, programmable metasurface system based on LED-array control.
Figure 2: Dynamic Metatomic Unit
Figure 3: Coding Sequence
Figure 4: Near-field simulation diagram
Figure 5: (a) Metasurface prototype sample
Figure 6: Near-field test results
Figure 7: Near-field measurements at the focal planes of 100 mm and 200 mm.
Figure 8: Communication tests at focal points (0, −80, 150) and (0, 80, 150)
Source: Optics World
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