Optically Controlled SHF SATCOM Array (OCSSA).

Users of Defense Satellite Communications Systems DSCS will place increasing demands on the throughput of the systems. Increased reliance on DSCS to send and receive large amounts of data to high performance ground terminals means more high performance will be expected in future DSCS satellites. As the system capability increases, use of DSCS by more mobile platforms will become more popular. Photonics technology promises to enable DSCS growth with wider bandwidth systems and smaller packages. A top-down system engineering study that identifies where and how photonic approaches may enhance system performance is described. This study produced two unique array designs for DSCS airborne and satellite applications. Both are described in terms of performance characteristics at the array and DSCS link levels. The airborne array uses a unique switched delay beamformer that achieves 100 usage of all the delays all of the time. No additional lasers for frequency multiplexing are required. This hardware compression means there are no overhead hardware penalties due to time delays not switched into a signal path. The satellite array design uses a LO multiplexing scheme to produce simultaneous independent multiple beams. The hardware to produce four beams measures approximately 4 by 4 by 30.