Experimental study of chromatic dispersion effects on antenna beam forming by RF over fiber

Abstract

We studied effects of fiber chromatic dispersions on radio over fiber systems using multi-wavelength tunable laser sources. A beam forming experiment of 2 GHz-band array antennas by controlling wavelengths of four light sources was conducted, where 5 km single-mode fiber and 3 nm wavelength tuning range yielded π phase shift of RF signals. We also studied transmission penalties due to the phase difference between the double sidebands of amplitude-modulated RF signals caused by the chromatic dispersion. This study clarified that our method would be applicable to millimeter-wave band by properly setting the transmission fiber length.