Research and application progress of reconfigurable digital metasurfaces

Reconfigurable digital metasurfaces have emerged as a key technology enabling real-time, programmable control of electromagnetic waves, offering significant advantages in terms of miniaturization, integration, and functional diversity. This paper systematically reviews the development of three typical types of reconfigurable metasurfaces—reflective, transmissive, and integrated structures—with emphasis on unit design, control strategies, and system architecture. Reflective metasurfaces have advanced from basic binary control to spatiotemporal modulation, enabling multifunctional beam shaping and adaptive wireless interaction. Transmissive designs mitigate feed blockage and evolve toward broadband, polarization-manipulated, and low-profile implementations. Integrated metasurfaces replace external feeds with embedded feed networks, significantly improving system compactness and beamforming accuracy. Furthermore, recent representative applications are summarized across three emerging directions: simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT), electromagnetic interference mitigation, and reconfigurable holographic imaging. Progress in dynamic energy focusing, high-efficiency power synthesis, multimodal signal modulation, and environmental sensing is highlighted. This review provides insights into the technical evolution and application characteristics of reconfigurable metasurfaces, offering valuable reference for future research and engineering practices.