Radio front-end for frequency agile microwave photonic radars

Blatnik, Aljaž (author), Zmrzlak, Luka (author), Batagelj, Boštjan (author)

Recent advancements in photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have paved the way for a new era of frequency-agile coherent radar systems. Unlike traditional all-electronic RF radar techniques, fully photonic systems offer superior performance, overcoming bandwidth limitations and noise degradation when operating across S (2–4 GHz), X (8–12 GHz), and K-band (12–40 GHz) frequencies. They also exhibit excellent phase noise performance, even at frequencies exceeding 20 GHz. However, current state-of-the-art PICs still suffer from high processing losses in the optical domain, necessitating careful design of the electrical RF domain. This study delves into the critical challenges of designing RF front-ends for microwave photonic radars, including stability, noise minimization, and intermodulation distortion reduction. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed design, a functional prototype is constructed, achieving a total power gain of 107 dB (radar system at 10 GHz) while minimizing signal noise degradation. Furthermore, a comprehensive demonstration of the RF front-end, encompassing both optical RF signal generation and experimental measurements of a rotor blade’s Doppler fingerprint with 0.5 Hz resolution, validates the proposed system’s performance.

• Language: English
• Keywords: microwave photonic radar, photonic integrated circuit, RF front-end
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FE - Faculty of Electrical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: 16 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 13, iss. 23, art. 4662
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-165264
• UDC: 621.396:621.38:621.3.049.77
• ISSN on article: 2079-9292
• DOI: 10.3390/electronics13234662
• COBISS.SI-ID: 216797955
• Publication date in RUL: 28.11.2024

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Electronics
• Shortened title: Electronics
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2079-9292
• COBISS.SI-ID: 523068953

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: mikrovalovni fotonski radar, fotonska integrirana vezja, radio-frekvenčna vhodna stopnja