An RF-Source-Free Reconfigurable Microwave Photonic Radar With High-Resolution and Fast Detection Capability

This paper presents a novel microwave photonic (MWP) radar scheme that is capable of optically generating and processing broadband linear frequency-modulated (LFM) microwave signals without using any radio-frequency (RF) sources. In the transmitter, a broadband LFM microwave signal is generated by controlling the period-one (P1) oscillation of an optically injected semiconductor laser. After targets reflection, photonic de-chirping is implemented based on a dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator (DMZM), which is followed by a low-speed analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital signal processer (DSP) to reconstruct target information. Without the limitations of external RF sources, the proposed radar has an ultra-flexible tunability, and the main operating parameters are adjustable, including the central frequency, bandwidth, frequency band, and temporal period. In the experiment, a fully photonics-based radar with a bandwidth of 4 GHz is established for high-resolution and fast detection. The results show that a high range resolution reaching ∼1.88 cm, and a two-dimensional (2D) imaging resolution as high as ∼1.88 cm × ∼2.00 cm is achieved with a sampling rate of 100 MSa/s in the receiver. The flexible tunability of the radar is also experimentally demonstrated. The proposed radar scheme features low cost, simple structure, and high reconfigurability, which may pave the way for future multifunction adaptive and miniaturized radars.