Photonics-Assisted Non-Scanning High-Accuracy Frequency Measurement Using Low-Speed Components

Instantaneous frequency measurement of microwave signals is a fundamental functionality for applications including radar and electronic warfare. Photonic techniques have potential to enlarge the measurable frequency range, however, most of photonics-assisted solutions are lack of the ability to simu...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhiqiang Shen, Chenfei Jin, Qunsong He, Zijing Zhang, Yuan Zhao
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2019-01-01
Series:IEEE Photonics Journal
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8735826/
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Instantaneous frequency measurement of microwave signals is a fundamental functionality for applications including radar and electronic warfare. Photonic techniques have potential to enlarge the measurable frequency range, however, most of photonics-assisted solutions are lack of the ability to simultaneously achieve large measurement range, high measurement speed, and high measurement accuracy in a single system. Here, we propose a photonics-assisted nonscanning high-accuracy multiple frequency measurement scheme based on optical beating between double sideband carrier-suppressed signals and a detuning optical frequency comb at a narrow band photodiode. The frequencies of the incoming RF signals can be estimated by analyzing the frequency and power information of the beating notes. In a proof-of-principle experiment, single- and multiple-frequency measurements with a large measuring range from 2 to 12 GHz and low measuring error of less than 2 MHz was achieved. This scheme is suitable for instantaneous multiple-frequency measurement with high accuracy across a large frequency measurement range.
ISSN:1943-0655