Emerging millimeter wave photonic devices and integration platforms for avionic applications

Emerging photonic solutions hold the promise to transform avionics capabilities. Photonically enabled sensors and sources based on high-performance EO modulators and photodiode detectors exhibit extraordinary bandwidth and tunability. Photonic phased arrays possess unique capabilities to perform real-time, analog correlations in the optical domain via simple coherent interference, i.e. imaging. TCA antennas, directly fed by optical fibers and integrated into LCP-based platforms, will allow sensing and high-performance communications to be conformally integrated into airframes, while minimizing SWaP.