A photonics-based RF scanning receiver exploiting digital feed-forward lasers noise cancellation

This paper presents an innovative architecture of photonics-based RF scanning receiver that exploits a digital feedforward noise cancellation method for removing the beat noise between the lasers used in the scheme, instead of a complex laser locking mechanism as in a previous implementation. Moreover, compared with conventional channelized implementations, it reaches wide operating frequency range and reduced encumbrance, avoiding the need for bulky RF components such as RF filter banks and synthesizers. An experimental validation shows an RF input range of 0÷27.5 GHz and instantaneous bandwidth of 2 GHz. Further developments will increase the range over 40 GHz. Implementing the scheme through integrated photonics technologies will reach high environmental stability and reduced size weight and power consumption, meeting the increasing requirements of wideband real-time RF signal analysis.