Data-Driven Physical-Layer Optimization for RF and Optical Communications: Transmitarray Metasurfaces, Contextual-Bandit MUD, and Coherent Optical Links

This dissertation studies three physical-layer optimization problems that share a common difficulty: the forward model, whether an electromagnetic solver or a statistical channel model, is either too expensive to evaluate at design scale or too unstable to hold across a single processing block. The first two problems are treated in their own right, as problems in antenna design and in multi-user detection over time-variant channels; the third carries the methodology onto a coherent optical link,