Microwave photonics for multi-target detection

An X-band optically-steered phased array radar is developed to demonstrate high resolution multi-target detection. The beam forming is implemented based on wavelength-swept true time delay (TTD) technique. The beam forming system has a wide direction tuning range of ±54°, low magnitude ripple of ±0.5 dB and small delay error of 0.13 ps/nm. To further verify performance of the proposed optically-steered phased array radar, three experiments are then carried out to implement the single and multiple target detection. A linearly chirped X-band microwave signal is used as radar signal which is finally compressed at the receiver to improve the detection accuracy. The ranging resolution for multi-target detection is up to 2 cm within the ranging distance over 4m and the azimuth angle error is less than 4°.