OPTICALLY CONTROLLED PHASED-ARRAY RADAR RECEIVER USING SLM SWITCHED REAL-TIME DELAYS

We report the results of a demonstration of a real time delay, optical ly controlled phased array radar receiver. This implementation employe d a free space configuration based upon an optical switching network u sing liquid crystal spatial light modulators (SLM's). A three-delay un it, two-antenna array receiver was implemented at an optical wavelengt h of 1.3 mu m and demonstrated ''squint-free'' operation over the enti re X-band (8-12 GHz) with an angular accuracy of 1.4 degrees. Finally, a novel configuration for the two-antenna element SLM architecture wa s proposed and demonstrated equivalent system performance with a reduc tion in the number of components.