Short-range Wide-field-of-regard Extremely-agile Electronically-steered Photonic Emitter and Receiver (SWEEPER)
Abstract
The objective of the Short-range Wide-field-of-regard Extremely-agile Electronically-steered Photonic Emitter and Receiver (SWEEPER) program was to develop chip-scale dense waveguide modular technology to achieve true embedded phase array control for beams equivalent to 10W average power, less than 0.1 degree instantaneous field of view (IFOV), greater than 45 degree total field of view (TFOV), and frame rates of greater than 100 hertz (Hz) in packages that are "chip-scale." Such performance represents a three order of magnitude increase in speed, while also achieving a greater than two orders of magnitude reduction in size. Additionally, the integrated phase control provided the unprecedented ability to rapidly change the number of simultaneous beams, beam profile, and power-per-beam, thus opening a whole new direction in operational capability. Key technical challenges included the ability to achieve the needed facet density (facet pitch should be on the order of a wavelength or two), control the relative phase across all facets equivalent to 9-bits, and efficiently couple and distribute coherent light to facets from a master laser oscillator with an integrated waveguide structure.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2014
- Source ID
- c489453066c5a46cae0770ce68a730d8
Related Documents
- Root: ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY