An RF-source-free microwave photonic radar with an optically injected semiconductor laser for high-resolution detection and imaging

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 central frequency, bandwidth, frequency band, and temporal period. In the experiment, a fully photonics-based Ku-band radar with a bandwidth of 4 GHz is established for high-resolution detection and inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging. Results show that a high range resolution reaching ~1.88 cm, and a two-dimensional (2D) imaging resolution as high as ~1.88 cm x ~2.00 cm are achieved with a sampling rate of 100 MSa/s in the receiver. The flexible tunability of the radar is also experimentally investigated. The proposed radar scheme features low cost, simple structure, and high reconfigurability, which, hopefully, is to be used in future multifunction adaptive and miniaturized radars.