Beamforming systems, networks, and elements configured for simultaneous optical up/down conversion and beamforming

A beamforming system comprising:

• an array of N antennas, where N is a positive integer;
• at least one multi-wavelength optical source configured to provide at least one first beam of a first wavelength and at least one second beam of a second wavelength;
• and
• N beamforming elements, each beamforming element of the N beamforming elements associated with a respective one of the N antennas, each beamforming element comprising:
• an imprinting-shifting component configured to imprint a respective input signal onto the at least one second beam to form an imprinted beam, wherein the imprinting-shifting component comprises
• at least one modulator, and
• a splitting optical filtering element configured to receive the imprinted beam and provide a plurality of output beams, each output beam of the plurality of output beams corresponding to a respective channel frequency range, and
• a plurality of phase shifters to adjust respective optical phases of the plurality of output beams independently to obtain respective phase-shifted imprinted beams;
• one or more multi-beam optical couplers each configured to receive a respective phase-shifted imprinted beam and the at least one first beam, and further configured to cause the phase-shifted imprinted beam and the at least one first beam to interfere with one another to form a respective interference beam;
• and
• one or more optical-to-electrical converter components each configured to receive a respective interference beam and generate a respective frequency-shifted electrical signal based on the respective interference beam and having a time delay corresponding to the adjustment of the optical phase of the imprinted beam.