Photonic instantaneous microwave frequency measurement with adjustable measurement range based on an electro-optical...

This paper presents a simple photonic-assisted instantaneous microwave frequency measurement approach with an adjustable measurement range. In our scheme, different polarization processing is performed on the upper and the lower branches, and then the powers of the two branches are compared to obtain the amplitude comparison function (ACF), which provides the frequency-amplitude mapping. The measurement system is significantly simplified since only one polarization modulator (PolM) and one single laser source are required. In addition, our scheme achieves a larger ACF slope, which significantly increases the measurement resolution. In the simulation, a frequency measurement over the range of 3-42.8 GHz with measurement errors within $\pm 0.1\;{\rm GHz}$±0.1GHz is achieved by optimizing the dc bias voltage applied to the PolM and the polarization angle. This scheme provides a reference for measuring the unknown instantaneous frequency of the received signal from a radar system.