Refining Radar Architectures: Multichannel Rotary Joints for Surveillance Radars

Monolitic Hybrid Transmitter-Receiver Lens for Rotary On-Axis Communications

“…Highest data rates are reached with fiber optical rotary joints (FORJ). Besides their superior data rate in the range of Gbit/s up to multiple tens of Gbit/s per channel [6,7,13], these links provide immunity against RF. Single-fiber systems only consist of an optical transceiver at both sides and optical fibers in-between.…”

“…However, due to sophisticated mechanical alignment [8], these systems are expensive. Multi-fiber links offer even higher data rates but exhibit a very high complexity [6].…”

“…Reliable, real-time connectivity is the backbone of industrial automation. Data transmission over rotating parts is required in a broad range of applications such as wind turbines [1], industrial communications [2,3], surveillance radars [3][4][5][6][7], military [2,8], aerospace [9] and many more. Table 1 gives an overview of the most important transmission principles used in rotary communication links.…”

“…Slip rings were widespread in the past. However, due to mechanical contact they suffer wear and tear which limits their durability [1,2,5,6,[9][10][11] and thus increases maintenance costs. Precious brush materials and lubricants are used to extend lifetime [12] at the expense of increased system complexity and higher costs.…”

“…Precious brush materials and lubricants are used to extend lifetime [12] at the expense of increased system complexity and higher costs. Therefore, contactless data transfer is favored nowadays [6,10]. Life times of several hundreds of revolutions are common and rotation speeds in the order of magnitude of 10 3 rpm or even 10 4 rpm are reached with contactless methods.…”