Microwave Photonic Direction-Finding Spectrometer

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an architecture wherein the radio-frequency (RF) field at the antenna array is up-converted to an optical carrier and passed through an array of optical fibers, after which an analog Fourier transform is taken in a free-space optical processor. Through the use of multiple temporal dispersion projections, implemented through varied-length optical fiber segments, the locations of RF sources in three-dimensional space spanning angle-of-arrival (AoA) and instantaneous frequency may be determined on a millisecond time scale using commercial computing hardware after detection by a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. We present a mathematical formulation of the problem, followed by simulated and experimental results showing three-dimensional spatial-spectral localization through the solution to a system of equations brought forth through the use of Fourier optics to process the RF field.