Title :
Fiber-optic true time steering of an ultrawide-band receive array
Author :
Frankel, Michael Y. ; Matthews, Paul J. ; Esman, Ronald D.
Author_Institution :
Opt. Sci. Div., Naval Res. Lab., Washington, DC, USA
fDate :
8/1/1997 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
We report the development and demonstration of the first true time-delay (TTD) fiber-optic beamformer for ultrawideband antenna receive operation. The beamformer is based on a dispersive-fiber prism configuration that properly time delays the signals originating at each receiving element for coherent combining in the microwave domain. The time-steered receive antenna consists of eight spiral elements arranged into a one-dimensional (l-D) sparsely populated array. The receive array shows an instantaneous bandwidth of 6-18 GHz, limited by the available matched microwave amplifiers. The array performance is measured in an anechoic chamber and exhibits unprecedented squint-free steering over an azimuth scan of 120° over the full frequency range
Keywords :
antenna feeds; antenna phased arrays; array signal processing; linear antenna arrays; microwave antenna arrays; optical delay lines; optical fibre dispersion; optical information processing; receiving antennas; spiral antennas; 12 GHz; 6 to 18 GHz; azimuth scan; dispersive-fiber prism configuration; fiber-optic beamformer; fiber-optic true time steering; lD sparsely populated array; spiral elements; squint-free steering; time delays; ultrawide-band receive array; Antenna arrays; Antenna measurements; Bandwidth; Delay effects; Microwave amplifiers; Microwave antenna arrays; Receiving antennas; Spirals; Ultra wideband antennas; Ultra wideband technology;
Journal_Title :
Microwave Theory and Techniques, IEEE Transactions on
