Aperture Field Analysis and Mobility-Aware Multiuser Modeling of Multibeam Multipolarized Holographic Metasurface Antennas for Low-Profile SATCOM Transmitters

This article presents an in-depth aperture-field analysis and numerical design methodology for multi-beam, multi-polarized holographic metasurfaces (HMS), followed by a system-level evaluation through mobility-aware multiuser modeling. A theoretical EM framework is first developed for aperture-field analysis, and two HMS topologies are designed to generate multiple linearly and circularly polarized beams with prescribed impedance modulation schemes. Building upon this design, a signal-processing-based multiuser analysis is performed, where the metasurface is modeled as a polarimetric channel using anH-matrix framework, enabling spatial- and polarization-division multiple access (SP-PDMA). The system-level study incorporates user mobility and angular misalignment to quantify the impact of beam deviation on SNR and sum-rate performance. The proposed HMS designs, comprising 88 × 88 = 7744 scalar meta-unit cells with an overall aperture of 26.5λ0× 26.5λ0, produce quad-beam, multi-planar, multi-polarized radiation at 25 GHz. Design-1 exhibits dual azimuth-plane radiation with dual circularly polarized beams (LHCP and RHCP) at (θ1, φ1) = (−20°, 0°) and (θ2, φ2) = (20°, 0°), along with dual linearly polarized beams (HP and VP) at (θ3, φ3) = (−20°, 90°) and (θ4, φ4) = (20°, 90°), making it well suited for SP-PDMA. Design-2 generates four linearly polarized beams (HP or VP) at (θn, φn) = {(20°, 45°), (20°, 135°), (20°, 225°), (20°, 315°)} with a peak gain (gmax) better than 26.5 dBi, providing enhanced SNR, reduced inter-user interference, and improved spectral efficiency. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the multi-polarization metasurface outperforms single-polarization configurations in SNR and interference mitigation. Beam misalignment and SNR-loss histograms further quantify mobility-induced performance variations, highlighting the framework’s capability to link EM metasurface design with multiuser system performance in high-mobility wireless communication scenarios.