STEERING OF AN OPTICALLY DRIVEN TRUE-TIME DELAY PHASED-ARRAY ANTENNA BASED ON A BROAD-BAND COHERENT WDM ARCHITECTURE

Performance of a six-channel (delay) three-antenna element coherent op tically driven phased-array antenna which transports true-time delays from the controller to the antenna site over 4.4 km of single-mode fib er (SMF) are presented, We demonstrate accurate true-time delay and be am steering from 0.8-1.5 GHz. Wide bandwidth intermediate frequency (I F) filters are used to minimize the phase-to-intensity noise, resultin g in a single-channel signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and dynamic range of 49 (dB-MBz) and 94 (dB-Hz)(2/3), respectively. Additionally, using up -conversion at the antenna site, true-time delays at frequencies up to 18.3 GHz are demonstrated.