Compact optical true time delay beamformer for a 2D phased array antenna using tunable dispersive elements

A hardware-compressive optical true time delay architecture for 2D beam steering in a planar phased array antenna is proposed using fiber-Bragg-grating-based tunable dispersive elements (TDEs). For an M x N array, the proposed system utilizes N TDEs and M wavelength-fixed optical carriers to control the time delays. Both azimuth and elevation beam steering are realized by programming the settings of the TDEs. An experiment is carried out to demonstrate the delay controlling in a 2 x 2 array, which is fed by a wideband pulsed signal. Radiation patterns calculated from the experimentally measured waveforms at the four antennas match well with the theoretical results. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America