Data Wireless Wavefront Shaping for Non-Coherent Few-Shot Near-Field Localization

Future wireless systems will operate at Millimeter-Wave (mm-Wave) and sub-Terahertz (sub-THz) frequencies to enable ultra-high data rates needed for many emerging applications. Transitioning to these frequency bands, together with the deployment of large antenna apertures, can extend the near-field region of a transmitter to several meters, opening fundamentally new opportunities for how networks can serve users. Crucially, realizing the full potential of such networks requires acquiring and tracking the real-time location of near-field users. Unfortunately, conventional localization techniques, which are primarily designed for far-field operation, struggle in the near-field regime. In this study, we introduce a novel few-shot near-field localization framework that enables precise user positioning using a single transmitting antenna array. We exploit the distinctive propagation characteristics of near-field wavefronts and the wide bandwidth available in the mmWave/sub-THz regime to enable accurate positioning, extracting both range and angular information without requiring phase-coherent measurements.