title: Spatial transformations: from fundamentals to applications.
abstract: This paper forms the introduction to this themed issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A on 'Spatial transformations', arising from the Royal Society Scientific Discussion Meeting held in January 2015. The paper begins with a review of the concepts and history of spatial transformations, followed by a discussion of the contributions from the papers in this themed issue. A summary of the advantages and current limitations of spatial transformations concludes the paper, with the key challenges identified at the Scientific Discussion Meeting also given.
authors.affiliation: School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK r.n.foster@ieee.org.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2745-2456
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Foster
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials, University of Oxford, 16 Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PH, UK.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7942-7837
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Grant
authors.affiliation: School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9949-7226
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4QL, UK.
authors.forename: Alastair
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hibbins
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4QL, UK.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Philbin
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4QL, UK.
authors.forename: Roy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sambles
keywords: antennas; cloaking; metamaterials; metasurfaces; spatial transformations; transformation optics