Photonic-Assisted Microwave Temporal Convolution

An approach to performing photonic-assisted temporal convolution of two microwave signals is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Temporal convolution involves three operations: time reversal of one microwave signal, the multiplication of the time-reversed signal with a second microwave signal, and the integration of the multiplied microwave signal, which can be implemented optically by a linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating (LCFBG), a Mach-Zehnder modulator, and a second LCFBG in conjunction with a low-speed photodetector, respectively. The proposed temporal convolution is experimentally evaluated, in which the calculation of three temporal convolutions between two rectangular waveforms, between an inverse sawtooth waveform and a rectangular waveform, and between an arbitrary waveform and a short pulse is experimentally demonstrated.