Patent ID: 7215472

Claim:
A beam steering system, comprising: a first electro-optical beam steerer, comprising a first array of electrically controllable phase shifting elements for directing an incident beam to a selected one of a plurality of first angles in a first plane, each one of such first angles being selected in accordance with a first electrical command fed to the phase shifting elements of the first electro-optical beam steerer; a first grating set to intercept the beam directed by the first electro-optical beam steerer and to steer such directed beam into one of a first plurality of directions in the first plane, each one of the directions being confined substantially to the first plane; a second grating set to intercept the beam directed by the first electro-optical beam steerer and first grating set and to deflect such directed beam into one of a second plurality of directions, each one of the second plurality of deflections being confined substantially to a second plane, such second plane being different from the first plane; and a second electro-optical beam steerer comprising a second array of electrically controllable phase shifting elements for deflecting the beam steered by said first grating set by a selected one of a plurality of second angles in a second plane different from the first plane, each one of such second angles being selected in accordance with a second electrical command fed to the phase shifting elements of the second electro-optical beam steerer.