Photonic integrated circuits employing multi-core fiber for broadband radio beamsteering (Invited)

This paper presents an optical beamforming network based on a photonic integrated circuit employing a weaklycoupled multi-core fiber to connect the different antenna elements. The proposed beamformer enables a centralized control of the resulting steering angle. By means of wavelength tuning, fast and dynamic configuration of the induced delay (and associated beam steering angle) is achieved remotely. The experimental results confirm high throughput transmission (> 10 Gbps) with electrical data signals with up to 3GHz bandwidth in the 24 GHz RF band (K-band). Wireless transmission of 16QAM-modulated, 1.5 GHz-wide signals is demonstrated in the laboratory from –26˚ to 33˚ providing a scanning range of 59˚

Experimental Demonstration of mm-Wave 5G NR Photonic Beamforming Based on ORRs and Multicore Fiber

[EN] A photonic beamformer system designed for nextgeneration 5G new radio (5G NR) operating in the millimeter waveband is proposed and demonstrated experimentally, including its performance characterization. The photonic beamforming device is based on optical ring resonators (ORRs) implemented on Si3N4 and assisted with multicore fiber (MCF) to feed different antenna elements (AEs). Fast-switching configuration of the ORRs is performed changing the operating wavelength, as tuning the wavelength modifies the coupling coefficient of the rings and, consequently, the induced time delay. Multibeam operation is evaluated at 17.6- and 26-GHz radio keeping the ORRs¿ configuration. The beamforming performance is evaluated using single-carrier signals with up to 128 quadrature amplitude modulation over up to 4.2-GHz electrical bandwidth. The experimental beamforming system with two AEs provides up to 21 Gb/s per user, while the beamforming system with four AEs provides up to 16.8 Gb/s per user. Wireless transmission confirms that changing the wavelength from 1545.200 to 1545.195 nm modifies the beam steering from 11.3° to 23° with 26-GHz signals (5G NR pioneer band in Europe).This work was supported in part by the Fundacion BBVA Leonardo HYPERCONN Project, in part by the Spain National Plan under Grant MINECO/FEDER UE TEC2015-70858-C2-1-R XCORE and Grant GVA AICO/2018/324 NXTIC, and in part by the Dutch FreeBEAM projects. The work of M. Morant was supported by Spain Juan de la Cierva under Grant IJCI-2016-27578. The work of A. Trinidad was supported by Dutch NWO Zwaartekracht Integrated Nanophotonics.Morant, M.; Trinidad, A.; Tangdiongga, E.; Koonen, T.; Llorente, R. (2019). Experimental Demonstration of mm-Wave 5G NR Photonic Beamforming Based on ORRs and Multicore Fiber. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques. 67(7):2928-2935. https://doi.org/10.1109/TMTT.2019.28944022928293567