An optically controlled phased array antenna based on single sideband polarization modulation

Abstract

A novel optically controlled phased array antenna consisting a simple optical beamforming network and an N element linear patch antenna array is proposed and demonstrated. The optical beamforming network is realized by N independent phase shifters using a shared optical single sideband (OSSB) polarization modulator together with N polarization controllers (PCs), N polarization beam splitters (PBSs) and N photodetectors (PDs). An experiment is carried out. A 4-element linear patch antenna array operating at 14 GHz and a 1 × 4 optical beamforming network (OBFN) is employed to realize the phased array antenna. The radiation patterns of the phased array antenna at -30°, 0° and 30° are achieved.