Microwave photonic chaotic radar with frequency up/down conversion capability

A microwave photonic chaotic radar with frequency up/down conversion capability is proposed and demonstrated to implement high-resolution ranging. In the proposed radar, the broadband chaotic signal is generated by a chaotic optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) rather than a direct digital synthesizer. Based on photonic-assisted frequency up/down conversion, the radar operating frequency can be adjusted to the K-band without increasing the workload of digital correlation reception. The precise clock synchronization is avoided due to the optical fiber connection between the remote station (RS) and the central station (CS). The experimental results show that chaotic radar with a bandwidth of 6 GHz is established for high-resolution ranging. Detection of two targets is demonstrated with a range resolution of 2.55 cm, and maximum error is less than 0.35 cm.