Near-Field Meta-Steering – A Low-Profile Method to Steer the Beam of Any Antenna

#IEEE #AP-MTT-Chapter #Near-field #beam-steering #metasurfaces
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Abstract:

In the history of Antenna Engineering, there has been only one universal method to steer the beam of any fixed-beam antenna. That’s physically tilting the antenna. This method has been implemented in many commercial antenna systems using motorised mechanical tilting and rotating systems. Now there is another way: Near-Field Meta-Steering, in which two flat phase-gradient metasurfaces (MS) are placed very close to the fixed-beam “base” antenna, in its near field, and are rotated independently. This way, the beam of the antenna can be steered over a large range of zenith angles and the complete azimuth range of 3600, without tilting or rotating the antenna. In fact, no part of the system is tilted.

A Meta-Steering antenna system is only slightly taller than the base antenna itself. Lack of tilting means it is much shorter than conventional tilting antennas. In the future, one electronically reconfigurable near-field metasurface may provide 2D beam steering without any mechanical rotation.

Since this method was introduced in the seminal paper in 2017, together with the concept of Near-Field Phase Transformation, it has been applied by many industry and academic researchers across the globe (e.g. Thales in France, WaveUp in Italy, TICRA in Denmark, UCLA, University of Wisconsin-Madison, San Diego University, all in USA) to develop novel antenna systems, and to steer the beam of nearly all types of fixed-beam antennas, e.g. Fabry-Perot/resonant cavity antennas, reflector (dish) antennas, metasurface antennas, slot arrays, holographic antennas, and even some end-fire antennas, to name a few.

The method is also known in several names including Risley Method and Near-Field Phase Transformation. The surfaces are also known in different names, e.g. meta lenses, flat lenses, transmitarrays, deflectors.

Several different types of metasurfaces have been developed, e.g. standard printed-circuit-board type, all dielectric, all metal, hybrid and 3D-printed, and some research outcomes have led to national prizes and awards. This distinguished lecture will review the research conducted by the speaker’s team as well as others in this modern and growing area of research.


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  • The University of Queensland
  • Brisbane, Queensland
  • Australia
  • Building: 46 (Andrew N. Liveris Building)
  • Room Number: 914
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  • Starts 05 May 2026 02:00 PM UTC
  • Ends 09 May 2026 02:00 PM UTC
  • No Admission Charge

  Speakers

Prof. Karu Esselle of University of Technology Sydney

Topic:

Near-Field Meta-Steering – A Low-Profile Method to Steer the Beam of Any Antenna

Biography:

Karu Essell­e, FRSN, FIEEE, FIEAust, is Distinguished Professor in Electromagnetic and Antenna Engineering at University of Technology Sydney. A large collection of awards Karu recently received include Academic Research Team of the Year (Team Leader) at 2025 Australian Space Awards, 2024 Premier’s Prize for Leadership in Innovation in New South Wales, Australia’s national 2023 Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science in Safeguarding Australia (Team Leader), Australia’s national 2022 Professional Engineer of the Year, both the most prestigious space award in Australia – the “Winner of Winners” Excellence Award – as well as the Academic of Year Award at the 2022 Australian Space Awards, 2022 UTS Chancellor’s Medal, both the Excellence Award and the Academic of the Year Award at 2021 Australian Defence Industry Awards, and 2019 Motohisa Kanda Award (from IEEE USA) for the most cited paper in IEEE Transactions on EMC in the past five years.

Karu is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales, IEEE and Engineers Australia. He has authored over 750 research publications, and his papers have been cited over 18,000 times. His h-index is 66. Karu is among the top 0.3% of active researchers in the world in the research area of Networking and Telecommunications, according to an analysis published in Elsevier, which considered only actively publishing researchers in this field. 

Since 2002, his research income is over 35 million dollars. Karu has provided expert assistance to more than a dozen companies in USA, Europe and Australia. At present, Karu is the Representative of the IEEE Antennas & Propagation Society (AP-S) for all Asia-Pacific countries excluding China and India. From 2018 to 2020. Karu chaired the prestigious Distinguished Lecturer Program Committee of the IEEE AP-S for 3+ years. He has served or is serving in 8 global committees of this IEEE society, including AdCom and Awards. In addition, Karu has been a Senior Editor of IEEE Access and has served as an Associate Editor for nearly all major journals in his fields including IEEE Transactions on Antennas Propagation, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, IEEE Access and IET MAP. He is a Director of Innovations for Humanity Pty Ltd. 

Karu was in the College of Expert Reviewers of the European Science Foundation. He has been invited to serve as an international expert/research grant assessor by many research funding bodies around the globe, and as an Assessor for professorial promotions by prestigious universities.

Previously Karu was a Director of WiMed Research Centre and Associate Dean – Higher Degree Research (HDR) at Macquarie University. He has also served as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council and the Division Executive. Karu is also the Chair of the Board of management of Australian Antenna Measurement Facility, and was the elected Chair of both IEEE New South Wales (NSW), and IEEE NSW AP/MTT Chapter, in 2016 and 2017. His research activities are posted in the web at https://www.uts.edu.au/staff/karu.esselle and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karu_Esselle

Address:Sydney, New South Wales, Australia