A Photonic Integrated Continuously Tunable True Time Delay Based Broadband Beamformer for Millimeter Wave Communication

Abstract

The overall mobile data traffic is projected to reach astonishingly 5 zettabytes per month by the year 2030, according to the forecast presented by the International Telecommunication Union. The evolution to 5G millimeter wave is opening doors to many novel applications and services by leveraging the higher carrier frequency of 24 GHz and beyond. 5G mmWave promises to deliver extreme bandwidth, ultra-low latency, faster data speeds and responsiveness thereby facilitating broadband connectivity to densely populated areas. The underlying motivation driving this research is to harness optical beamforming as a means to surmount the impediments such as severe free space loss and blockage effects that hinder millimeter wave signal propagation and facilitate faster and wideband communication newline