Impulse optoelectronic Ultra-Wide Band antenna array

The laboratory XLIM has developed an impulse optoelectronic Ultra-Wide Band antenna array for UWB radar applications. This paper presents this system in which photoconductive switches generating high voltage monopolar pulses and UWB antennas are associated. The control of the releasing delay of the sources via optic provides to sum the radiation power and to steer the transient radiation beam accurately. The experiments realized with this optoelectronic array validate these two concepts. We also propose another way of improvement of these systems by using bipolar pulse generators.