Traditional phased arrays face physically inflexible routing schemes and high power dissipation in distributing the input signal to each individual element. Our phased array integrated circuit (IC) design utilizes optical synchronization for which each phased array element receives an optical carrier modulated with the desired RF signal. This reduces loss during signal distribution while allowing for a physically flexible configuration. With these ICs housed on a PCB also containing custom-designed patch antennas, the full array takes a single modulated optical signal and transmits a steerable beam at an RF frequency of 6 GHz. Our project is a proof of concept for an improvement on the crucial existing technology of phased arrays. Beamo aims to explore the advantages of optical synchronization that can be applied to a wide range of related applications such as communications and imaging.
Built With
- altium
- cadence
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