High-Performance Broadband RF Channelized Receiver Without Frequency Shifting

The microwave photonics channelized receiver based on dual optical frequency combs (OFCs) technology has a wide range of applications in the field of real-time perception and processing of large bandwidth high-frequency signals in complex electromagnetic environments. However, the current channelized system design scheme requires a large number of optoelectronic devices, which brings about significant system losses and makes it difficult to achieve a lower noise figure (NF) and higher spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR), especially in situations with many system channels. These issues can lead to increased system complexity and poor performance, making it difficult to put the system into practical applications. In this paper, a high-performance microwave photonics channelized receiver without frequency shifting based on dual OFCs is designed by removing the frequency-shifting module from the system, placing the OFC generation module after the signal modulation module, and adjusting the positions of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers in the system. This receiver achieves efficient utilization of the OFCs while outputting multiple channels, reducing the NF of the system and improving the SFDR of the system. Based on this design scheme, a 23-channel broadband microwave photonics channelized receiver was implemented, which converted the 0.3-23.3GHz radio frequency signal to 1.3GHz-2.3GHz. At the same time, the NF and SFDR of the receiver can reach up to 22.4dB and 106.4dB·Hz
^2/3
, respectively. Compared with the simplest back-to-back coherent receiver system, the NF and SFDR do not show significant deterioration. This design scheme greatly improves the performance of NF and SFDR while not reducing the number of system channels, making the system a solid step toward practicality.