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Reconfigurable radar transmitter based on photonic microwave signal generation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Francesco Laghezza ,
Fabrizio Berizzi ,
Amerigo Capria ,
Andrea Cacciamano ,
Giovanni Serafino ,
Paolo Ghelfi  and
Antonella Bogoni
Francesco Laghezza*
Affiliation:
Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, via Caruso 16, 56122 Pisa, Italy. Phone:  + 39 0502217673. CNIT-RaSS (National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications – Radar and Surveillance System Research Center), via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy.
Fabrizio Berizzi
Affiliation:
Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, via Caruso 16, 56122 Pisa, Italy. Phone:  + 39 0502217673. CNIT-RaSS (National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications – Radar and Surveillance System Research Center), via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy.
Amerigo Capria
Affiliation:
CNIT-RaSS (National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications – Radar and Surveillance System Research Center), via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy.
Andrea Cacciamano
Affiliation:
CNIT-RaSS (National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications – Radar and Surveillance System Research Center), via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy.
Giovanni Serafino
Affiliation:
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy.
Paolo Ghelfi
Affiliation:
CNIT-NLPN (National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications – National Laboratory of Photonics Network), via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy.
Antonella Bogoni
Affiliation:
CNIT-NLPN (National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications – National Laboratory of Photonics Network), via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy.
*
Corresponding author: F. Laghezza Email: francesco.laghezza@iet.unipi.it
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Abstract

In this paper we propose a photonic technique for a reconfigurable microwave signal generation based on the beating of two laser modes coming from a regenerative fiber mode-locked laser (FMLL) into a photodiode. The excellent performance of this kind of pulsed laser guarantees high stability on the directly generated microwave signal even at ultrahigh frequencies (up to W band). Therefore, by using the proposed architecture, the performance of a reconfigurable full digital coherent radar system can be enhanced for example in terms of moving target indicator (MTI) improvement factor and analog to digital converter maximum signal to noise ratio. Differently from the conventional radar oscillators, whose performance strongly deteriorate with increasing frequencies, the photonic radio frequency (RF) generation always shows an excellent spectral purity. Moreover, thanks to the achievable high repetition rates and the coherence properties of the FMLL, this laser scheme has also been proposed for digitizing, directly at RF, the received signal by electro-optical sampling. Thus the advantage of using just one device for signal generation in both the transmitter and receiver chain, makes the proposed solution a cost-effective architecture for microwave signal generation.

Keywords

Microwave photonicsRadar applicationsRadar architectures and systems
Type
Research Papers
Information
International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies , Volume 3 , Special Issue 3: Special Issue on European Microwave Week 2010 , June 2011 , pp. 383 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and the European Microwave Association 2011

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References

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