Photonic dual RF beam reception of an X band phased array antenna using a photonic crystal fiber-based true-time-delay beamformer

Harish Subbaraman; Maggie Yihong Chen; Ray T Chen

doi:10.1364/ao.47.006448

Photonic dual RF beam reception of an X band phased array antenna using a photonic crystal fiber-based true-time-delay beamformer

Appl Opt. 2008 Dec 1;47(34):6448-52. doi: 10.1364/ao.47.006448.

Authors

Harish Subbaraman¹, Maggie Yihong Chen, Ray T Chen

Affiliation

¹ Microelectronics Research Center, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78758, USA.

PMID: 19037374
DOI: 10.1364/ao.47.006448

Abstract

We report dual RF beam reception of an X band phased array antenna using a photonic crystal fiber (PCF)-based delay network. Each incoming RF signal can be independently received, and the angle of arrival can be determined based on the delay time-dependent wavelength. Two RF signals with frequencies 8.4 and 12 GHz impinge upon an X-band antenna array from -7.4 degrees and -21.2 degrees . These signals are detected, and the angle of arrival is determined with a very good degree of accuracy using PCF-based true-time delay. The total number of RF beams that can be simultaneously detected is limited by the hardware availability and the bandwidth of the wavelength differentiation capability of the system.