Wideband Antenna for RF Photonics Modules

During pre-release, until the topic opens on Dec 2, 2026, you may contact the topic author directly with technical questions. After that, questions go through the Topic Q&A on DSIP.

Design, fabricate, and experimentally test a wideband antenna solution ready to be integrated with standard RF-photonics transceiver modules. The antenna module must satisfy two key requirements. First, they should be fully compatible with standard packaging assemblies of RF-photonic modules. Second, they must deliver stable and efficient performance across a broad frequency bandwidth. However, integrating antennas with RF-photonic modules presents a significant challenge due to the electrically small size of the antennas and the bandwidth limitations imposed by Chu’s limit. To address this challenge, innovative antenna designs are required. These solutions may incorporate passive and/or nonlinear materials or elements to counteract the dispersive behavior of the antenna and enable broadband radiation while remaining suitable for integration with RF-photonic modules. The final design should ensure seamless integration of the RF-photonic and antenna modules, enabling them to work synergistically with minimized size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C).

The full objective, description, Phase I, II and III requirements and evaluation criteria are in the official topic on DSIP.