Integrated Photonics for multi-channel RF scanning receivers

Electronic warfare (EW) receivers face strict requirements, balancing high performance with small size. To this extent, photonics offers a solution by providing wide bandwidth, flexible tuning, and immunity to electromagnetic interference. Recent advances in integrated photonics also offer potential reductions in weight and size, while demonstrating microwave photonics application capabilities. In this paper, we present the design and simulation results of a 6-channel EW receiver. It covers a wide frequency range from 0.5 to 40 GHz, with an instantaneous bandwidth of 1.333 GHz, suitable for modern radars. Our approach is based on hybrid integration, combining silicon nitride (SiN) and indium phosphide (InP) photonics platforms.