Automatic Monitor-Based Tuning of an RF Silicon Photonic 1X4 Asymmetric Binary Tree True-Time-Delay Beamforming Network Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • 2018 IEEE. Photonic beamforming networks are promising candidates to achieve power-efficient transmission in future cellular communication systems. However, sensitivity to process and temperature variations necessitates an automatic calibration solution to enable robust operation. This paper demonstrates fully automatic monitor-based tuning of an integrated optical ring resonator-based 1X4 asymmetric binary tree optical beamforming network (OBFN). The proposed monitor-based tuning algorithm compensates fabrication variations and thermal crosstalk by controlling micro-heaters individually using information from electrical monitors. This algorithm is demonstrated on an OBFN that operates at 30 GHz with 2 GHz bandwidth and is fabricated in a standard silicon photonics foundry process. Successful calibration of the OBFN from a severely degraded initial response to the well-defined group delay responses required for a targeted radiating angle over 60-30 to 30 ) in a linear beamforming antenna array is achieved. This fully automatic tuning approach opens the possibility of employing silicon OBFNs in real wideband mm-wave wireless communication systems.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY

altmetric score

  • 3

author list (cited authors)

  • Choo, G., Madsen, C. K., Palermo, S., & Entesari, K.

citation count

  • 28

complete list of authors

  • Choo, Gihoon||Madsen, Christi K||Palermo, Samuel||Entesari, Kamran

publication date

  • November 2018