Photonic T/R Module

Leveraging on Agiltron's recent breakthrough in manufacturing low cost fiber optic digital delay lines and the drastic improvement in cost and performance of commercial optical transceivers, we propose to develop a practical fiber optic variable time delay based T/R integration module for microwave coherent distributed aperture and space-time coded phased array radars. The proposed approach overcomes the deficiencies in limited delay time and excessive loss associated with electronic phase array antenna modules, providing the sufficient long delays beyond electronic means. The use of ultra-low loss optical fiber further reduces cost, weight and size, while mitigating electromagnetic interference, accommodating wide signal bandwidths and providing frequency independent beam steering of simultaneous multiple radar bands via the generation of true time delays. The practicality of such an optically-fed time delay T/R module will be demonstrated in this program in a close collaboration with the Antenna Department at Northrop Grumman. A few-channel module is targeted in Phase I, and a multiple channel prototype module will be demonstrated in Phase II.