Optical signal distribution for a satellite phased array

Author

Williams, M.O. ; Nawaz, Muhammad ; Pescod, C.R.

Author_Institution

Microwave & Optical Commun. Groups, GEC-Marconi Res. Ltd., Chelmsford, UK

fYear

1990

fDate

32885

Abstract

Describes an optical signal distribution and interface system. The system has been built to determine the feasibility of this approach for use on an advanced synthetic aperture radar (SAR) Earth resourcing satellite. The satellite will utilize an electronically steered phased array antenna with a large number of active remote transmit-receive (T/R) elements. Transmit signal distribution is at 5 GHz using a directly modulated laser. Optical signal splitting is used, with monomode and multimode fused fibre couplers. The optical receiver is a reactively matched PIN photodiode feeding an all MMIC receiver amplifier chain. Receive signal beam combining occurs at 300 MHz. The paper reviews the performance and design criteria of the current system and consider areas open to further refinement

Keywords

antenna phased arrays; optical communication equipment; optical fibres; optical links; radar antennas; remote sensing; satellite antennas; 300 MHz; 5 GHz; Earth resourcing satellite; MMIC receiver amplifier; SAR; SHF; VHF; design; directly modulated laser; electronically steered; multimode fused fibre; optical interface system; optical receiver; optical signal distribution; optical signal splitting; performance; reactively matched PIN photodiode; remote transmit-receive elements; satellite phased array; signal beam combining; synthetic aperture radar;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

iet

Conference_Titel

Optical Intersatellite Links and On-Board Techniques, IEE Colloquium on

Conference_Location

London

Type

conf

Filename

189662