NASA SBIR 2009 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Crystal Research, Inc.
48501 Warm Springs Blvd., Suite 103
Fremont, CA 94539 - 7750
(510) 445-0833

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Suning Tang
suningtang@eocrystal.com
48501 Warm Springs Blvd., Suite 103
Fremont, CA 94539 - 7750
(510) 445-0833

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 4
End: 5

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
Multi-band phased array antenna (PAA) can reduce the number of antennas on shipboard platforms while offering significantly improved performance. In order to steer wideband beams, photonic beamforming techniques must be invoked so that efficient elemental vector summation in the receiving mode or in the transmit mode is independent of frequency. Crystal Research, Inc. proposes to develop a multi-band photonic antenna based on a high-speed optical true-time-delay beamformer, capable of simultaneously steering multiple independent RF beams in less than 300 ns. Such a high steering speed is 3 orders of magnitude faster than any other existing optical beamformers. Unlike other approaches, the proposed technology uses a single controlling device per operation band, which eliminates the need for massive optical switches, laser diodes and fiber Bragg gratings. More importantly, only one beamformer is needed for all antenna elements. Advantages of the proposed multi-badn photonic phased array anttena includes wideband multibeam operation, high-speed steering, microwave delay compatible, small size, light weight, low power consumption, and immune to electro-magnetic interfere. The Phase II technical goal is to extend the Phase I results into a fully functional prototype of a multi-band photonic phased array antenna, which will be delivered to NASA.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Multi-band photonic phased array antennas can be used for NASA (1) high-data rate communication and (2) remote sensing applications. Potential communications applications include: lunar and planetary exploration, landers, probes, Lunar Relay Satellites, lunar rovers, lunar habitats, lunar surface EVA, suborbital vehicles, sounding rockets, balloons, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's), TDRSS communication, and expendable launch vehicles (ELV's). Potential remote sensing applications include: radiometers, passive radar interferometer platforms, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) platforms for planetary science.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The proposed program is an important step towards the commercialization of multi-band phased array antenna for military and civilian use. There is a significant civilian market for low cost phased array antennas, particularly for mobile satellite communications applications. There is a clear market pull for versatile arrays for both military electronics and the commercial broadband wireless and satellite communications arena.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING (NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.)

Highly-Reconfigurable Laser Optical & Photonic Materials Photonics RF