Common Control Module for Photonically Controlled Phased Arrays.

Abstract : Photonic control of phased array antennas will allow fiber optic remoting of many antenna functions away from the front end of the antenna array. Integrated photonics is used to consolidate these operations onto a compact and low cost common module. The common module is independent of the frequency of operation of the antenna array. This program consisted of the design, development and demonstration of a 16-channel Integrated Phase and Amplitude Controller (IPAC) for performing two-dimensional phase and amplitude beam forming and steering operations. The photonic IPAC module was demonstrated at both Radio Access Point (RAP) Radio (6 to 12 GHz) and Wireless Local Area Network (LAN) (54 to 58 GHz) frequencies. Two dimensional beam steering of a phased array antenna was verified using a simplified two signal control applied to the photonic controller. Photonic amplitude control of the antenna elements was shown to suppress antenna sidelobe levels for beam forming operations.