The Role of Photonic Devices in Advanced Phased Array Antennas

In this paper we introduce novel radio-frequency-photonic (RF-photonic) components, such as advanced electro-optic modulators (EOMs) and high-power photodetectors (PDs), and their application to advanced phased array systems. In addition, by strongly leveraging the microelectronics manufacturing industry, chip-scale optical systems have been implemented using photonic integrated circuits (PICs), which enable a profound reduction in size, weight, and power (SWaP). Such advances are destined to have a significant impact on the development, application, and commercialization of next generation phased array systems, particularly for phased array transmit (Tx) and receive (Rx) antennas that provide ultra-wideband operation with time-of-flight full beamspace processing, with near unlimited beam bandwidth products (BBP). Accordingly, this paper presents phased array systems that performs massive beamspace processing in such a way as to render a realtime image of the passive RF environment. On the active signal side, a similar phased array system has demonstrated simultaneous, broadband multi-beam, multi-band, and multi-data processing. These systems have achieved upwards of a BBP of over 10 THz.