Simultaneous beam steering of multiple signals based on optical wavelength selective switch

A novel photonics-based scheme for the independent and simultaneous beam steering of multiple RF signals at a wideband phased array antenna is presented. A wavelength selective switch is employed both as a wavelength router to feed multiple antenna elements, and as a tunable phase shifter to independently control the phase of each signal at any antenna element. In the experiment, two signals at 12.5GHz and 37.5GHz are simultaneously fed to the four output ports of the wavelength selective switch with independent and tunable phase shifts, emulating the independent steering of two signals in a four-element phased-array antenna. The results confirm the precision and flexibility of the proposed scheme.