Microwave Photonic Dual-Beam Transmit-Receive Shared Beamforming System

SHI Fangjing

doi:10.11999/JEIT260772

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SHI Fangjing. Microwave Photonic Dual-Beam Transmit-Receive Shared Beamforming System[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT260772

Citation:

SHI Fangjing. Microwave Photonic Dual-Beam Transmit-Receive Shared Beamforming System[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT260772

SHI Fangjing. Microwave Photonic Dual-Beam Transmit-Receive Shared Beamforming System[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT260772

Citation:

SHI Fangjing. Microwave Photonic Dual-Beam Transmit-Receive Shared Beamforming System[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT260772

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Microwave Photonic Dual-Beam Transmit-Receive Shared Beamforming System

doi: 10.11999/JEIT260772 cstr: 32379.14.JEIT260772

SHI Fangjing^,

Southwest China Institute of Electronic and Technology, Chengdu 610036, China

Received Date: 2026-06-09
Accepted Date: 2026-10-16
Rev Recd Date: 2026-10-16

Available Online: 2026-10-26

Abstract

Abstract

Objective Traditional phased array radar suffers from beam squint during wideband and wide-angle scanning, which limits scanning accuracy, real-time performance, and system reliability. This limitation restricts its effectiveness in demanding applications such as military reconnaissance, aerospace, and intelligent transportation systems. In military applications in particular, frequency-dependent beam squint makes it difficult for existing radar systems to meet the high-precision and wide-coverage requirements of modern combat and surveillance. Conventional beamforming approaches also face limitations in hardware resource utilization, scanning flexibility, and anti-jamming capability. To address these challenges, a microwave photonic dual-beam transmit-receive shared beamforming system is proposed. By combining dispersive delay with Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) in a shared hardware architecture, the proposed system enables simultaneous steering of two beams without frequency-dependent beam squint, providing a technical approach to improving the performance and flexibility of wideband phased array systems. Methods The proposed microwave photonic dual-beam transmit-receive shared beamforming system consists of three main components: a Radio Frequency (RF) front end, an optically controlled beamforming network, and a broadband antenna. The optically controlled beamforming network employs a dispersion-based optical True Time Delay (TTD) mechanism, in which optical signals with different center wavelengths generate distinct time delays within the same dispersive medium. Through WDM, two optical wavelength channels share the dispersive delay network. By appropriately setting the initial wavelengths of two tunable lasers and independently adjusting their wavelengths in uniform increments, two sets of uniformly spaced interelement delays are generated, enabling independent steering of the two beams. Furthermore, the transmitting, receiving, and transceiver modules in the RF front end are configured to share hardware resources through time-division switching between transmitting and receiving modes. A broadband Vivaldi antenna is employed for wideband signal transmission and reception. The architecture also supports further beam expansion by increasing the number of optical sources and corresponding RF front-end modules. Results and Discussions The proposed microwave photonic dual-beam transmit-receive shared beamforming system enables time-division switching between dual-beam transmission and reception using a shared set of hardware resources. A 2×8 transmit-receive shared prototype platform is constructed for experimental validation. The experimental results demonstrate that the system achieves independent dual-beam spatial scanning without frequency-dependent beam squint over the frequency range of 15 GHz to 26 GHz, with a scanning range of ±52°. In the transmitting mode, when Beam 1 operates at 22 GHz, the measured radiation patterns at steering angles of ±52°, ±30°, and ±4° exhibit a main-to-sidelobe suppression ratio of approximately 13 dB (Fig. 11). When Beam 1 and Beam 2 operate at 15 GHz and 26 GHz, respectively, their radiation patterns exhibit the same beam pointing direction at a steering angle of 35°, with no observable beam squint (Fig. 12). This result confirms the effectiveness of the optical TTD mechanism in maintaining consistent beam pointing at different operating frequencies. In the receiving mode, with the operating frequencies of Beam 1 and Beam 2 unchanged, the radiation patterns at a steering angle of −42° also exhibit no observable beam squint (Fig. 13). These results verify the capability of the dispersion-based optical TTD network to support independent dual-beam steering and wideband operation in both transmitting and receiving modes. Conclusions A microwave photonic dual-beam transmit-receive shared beamforming system is proposed and experimentally validated. By combining dispersion-based optical TTD with WDM, the system achieves independent dual-beam steering using shared hardware resources and addresses the frequency-dependent beam squint problem encountered in conventional phased array radar during wideband and wide-angle scanning. The experimental results support the following conclusions: (1) The dispersion-based optical TTD mechanism supports real-time tuning of optical delays through laser-wavelength adjustment, while its combination with WDM provides a means of increasing the number of delay channels; (2) The optical TTD-based beamforming system operates over the frequency range of 15 GHz to 26 GHz with a scanning range of ±52°, without observable frequency-dependent beam squint under the tested conditions; (3) The proposed optically controlled beamforming architecture supports time-division switching between transmitting and receiving modes, enabling independent dual-beam scanning in either mode. The architecture can also be extended to support additional beams by increasing the number of optical sources and corresponding RF front-end modules.
- Microwave photonics,
- Phased array,
- Beamforming,
- Dispersion

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References(25)

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