Photonic Cross Connect Switch for True Time Delay Beam Steering (BMDO/02-211B--Optical Devices)

"Ballistic missile defense relies upon the deployment of radars that are designed for wideband or multi-band operation to support the following required functions: Accurate target tracking; Object discrimination and classification; Countermeasuresmitigation, and; Nuclear and natural environment mitigation. Additionally, the need to detect and track small targets at long ranges dictates that the radar be very large (many RF wavelengths across) and operate with high power aperture efficiency.Finally, in complex, multi-target scenarios, to efficiently fill the radar timeline, radars for ballistic missile defense applications require a wide electronic field of view and, most likely, multiple simultaneous beams. Meeting all of these systemobjectives will require further development of true-time delay (TTD) beamsteering technology. Photonic Systems, Inc. (PSI) plans to develop and demonstrate a method for performing two-dimensional steering of multiple simultaneous beams from a phased arrayantenna. The basis for this capability is a combination of leverging a photonic cross connect switch (PCCS) technology developed for the telecommunications market and developing new beam steering algorithms that can take advantage of the uniquecapabilities of these switches. We will also show how this PCCS-based approach is scaleable to large arrays of 10,000 elements or more. This work will serve as the basis for a family of projects whose collectiv