  Electromagnetic waves undergo multiple uncontrollable alterations as they
propagate within a wireless environment. Free space path loss, signal
absorption, as well as reflections, refractions and diffractions caused by
physical objects within the environment highly affect the performance of
wireless communications. Currently, such effects are intractable to account for
and are treated as probabilistic factors. The paper proposes a radically
different approach, enabling deterministic, programmable control over the
behavior of the wireless environments. The key-enabler is the so-called
HyperSurface tile, a novel class of planar meta-materials which can interact
with impinging electromagnetic waves in a controlled manner. The HyperSurface
tiles can effectively re-engineer electromagnetic waves, including steering
towards any desired direction, full absorption, polarization manipulation and
more. Multiple tiles are employed to coat objects such as walls, furniture,
overall, any objects in the indoor and outdoor environments. An external
software service calculates and deploys the optimal interaction types per tile,
to best fit the needs of communicating devices. Evaluation via simulations
highlights the potential of the new concept.
