Analysis and Simulation of a Coherent FMCW Lidar-Photonic Radar Combined Sensor System for Large Aperture Phased Array MIMO

A sensor system combining light detection and ranging (lidar) and radio detection and ranging (radar) using a large aperture phased array and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) approach is presented. Optical frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) local oscillator (LO) distribution over fiber allows to operate several photonic radar transceiver (TRX) frontends coherently. This enables large apertures and increased angular resolution in MIMO imaging radars. Reusing the FMCW LO signal for optical sensing could be beneficial for coherent large aperture phased array MIMO lidar system with low additional cost. Within this paper such a lidar-radar combined sensor system (LiRaCSS) is proposed and analysed. The results of the analysis are validated by means of the proposed hardware model, using Lumerical Interconnect. Finally, it should be noted that all components of LiRaCSS can be monolithically integrated into a single silicon based electronic photonic integrated circuit (EPIC).