SA PHOTONICS, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N161-006

Description

A scanning mirror used for airborne-based remote sensing should have the following performances:<br><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'></span>30 cm aperture<br><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'></span>90% efficiency<br><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'></span>>= 10 sweeps per second<br><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'></span>Arbitrary curve pattern scans<br><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'></span>+/-30 deg scanning angle<br><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'></span>10s of watts<br><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'></span>< 10 lbs.<br><span style='mso-spacerun:yes'></span>Airborne platform vibration motion<br><br>Gimbal-based scanning mirrors are large and heavy. MEMS beam steerers are fast and lightweight, but due to their small sizes, a large aperture scanning mirror uses many of them. However, the beams coming out from the MEMS beam steerers are very small. They quickly spread out. In order to establish a narrow beam, these small beams need to be phase-locked, but phased locking a large number of tiny and agile mirrors on an airborne platform can be extremely difficult. Optical Phased Arrays (OPA) can be used as scanning mirrors. They provide fast, precise, random-access, stable beam steering/scanning and excellent Size, Weight and Power (SWaP). <br><br>SA Photonics is pleased to propose the development of MagicEye, a large OPA steerer capable of meeting or exceeding the performances shown above. It is constructed using SA Photonics OPA elements called PLEOS. MagicEye does not contain moving parts. Thus, it has exceptionally attractive SWaP benefit.