Hardware-compressive 2-D fiber optic delay line architecture for time steering of phased-array antennas

The requirements for true time steering of phased array antennas are reviewed, and the resulting delay line hardware requirements are discussed. Two hardware-compressive fiber optic delay line architectures are then briefly described and quantitatively compared. The basics of phased array antenna partition are then presented. Based on these principles a delay-compressive and element-compressive 2-D fiber optic delay line architecture is described, and its basic characteristics and capabilities are discussed.