Photorefractive phased array beamforming with true-time-delay processing

We introduce a new optical approach to the problem of implementing true-time-delay (TDD) beamforming for a large N-element adaptive array that requires only 2 tapped delay lines (TDLs) instead of the conventional N TDLs. This new algorithm, BEAMTAP (Broadband and Efficient Adaptive Method for TTD Array processing) is capable of processing very large phased array radar systems with thousands of receiving elements with GHz of bandwidth. The corresponding digital processing load that would be required to solve such large, broadband adaptive array problems exceeds 10/sup 15/ multiply-accumulate operations per second: well beyond the capability of current electronic systems.