IMPACT OF PHASE-SHIFTER SHARING ON BEAM PARAMETERS IN OPTICALLY STEERED ANTENNA ARRAYS.

The authors study the robustness of an optically controlled phased array in the face of phase shift inaccuracies. The array uses a recently introduced optical phase shifter based on a piezoelectric crystal. The advantages of such shifters entail in terms of alleviating control requirements are achieved at the expense of higher sensitivity to phase shift errors. The authors borrow the interleaving technique from coding theory to change the internal architecture of the array. The result is a partial restoration of beamshape properties degraded by the sharing of one phase shifter by many antennas.