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

We propose to design, verify via simulation, and test experimentally, a new photonic true time delay (TTD) beamformer. Phase I results showed that this beamformer offers dramatic improvement in power, size, and weight-all of which are important for futureMDA missions requiring forward deployment of advanced radar systems. The photonic TTD beamformer is projected to consume 100x less dc power than a digital beamformer of equivalent size. Further, the number of delays required by this beamformer grows onlylinearly with N--for an array with N x N elements--which is a major advance over prior beamformers, in which the number of delays grew as N^2. This Phase II effort also establishes performance goals for two component development efforts necessary toenable a high-performance TTD beamformer: an optical switch and a module that provides a photonic interface to the transmit and receive (T/R) antenna. As an option we propose a test that combines a prototype of the TTD beamformer with a fiber optic switch(either a prototype from a parallel SBIR or a COTS switch). Such a test is the next logical step in increasing levels of integration of the beamformer and will yield important guidance for further work.