Generation of Arbitrary UWB Waveforms by Spectral Pulse Shaping and Thermally-Controlled Apodized FBGs

We propose and experimentally demonstrate an arbitrary UWB pulse generator. The proposed technique is based on spectral pulse shaping and frequency-to-time conversion. The reconfigurability of this technique comes from changing the apodizaton of a chirped fiber Bragg grating (FBG) using a series of heating elements (HE). By setting the appropriate temperature set to the HEs, any predesigned UWB waveforms can be generated with high precision. The effective isotropically radiated power (EIRP)-optimized and U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-optimized pulses as well as the traditional Gaussian monocycle and doublet UWB waveforms are generated which are in excellent match with the designed target pulse shapes. While other arbitrary pulse generators have used similar strategies (spectral shaping and frequency-to-time conversion), ours uses inexpensive technologies with the potential for practical, compact packaging.