Continuously variable true time-delay optical feeder for phased-array antenna employing chirped fiber grating

摘要

In this paper, we present and demonstrate a novel approach of a true time-delay (TTD) optical feeder for phased-array antennas (PAAs). A continuously variable TTD is achieved by employing tunable lasers and a wide-bandwidth chirped fiber Bragg grating (FBG) as the dispersive element. The results show that a very high resolution performance (equivalent to a 6-b microwave phase shifter) is obtained for an L-band PAA employing narrow-tuning bandwidth lasers with a wavelength stability of 0.005 nm and a 4-nm bandwidth chirped grating with a dispersion of 835 psm.