Simultaneous measurements of Ka-band microwave angle of arrival and Doppler frequency shift based on a silicon DPMZM

We propose a system for the simultaneous measurements of Ka-band microwave angle of arrival (AOA) and Doppler frequency shift (DFS) based on a high-speed silicon dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (Si-DPMZM).. An echo signal drives a sub-MZM while the combination of a phase-delay echo signal and a transmitted signal drives the other sub-MZM. Two optical bandpass filters (OBPFs) are used to select the upper and lower sidebands of the Si-DPMZM output signal, detected by low-speed photodiodes, then generating two intermediate frequency (IF) signals. Thus, both AOA and DFS (with direction) can be obtained by comparing the powers, phases and frequencies of these IF signals. The estimation error of measured AOA is less than ±3° from 0 to ±90°. Meanwhile, the DFS at 30/40 GHz were measured with an estimated error of less than 9.8 × 10^-10Hz within ±1 MHz. In addition, the fluctuation of DFS measurement is less than 3 × 10^-11Hz within 120 minutes, indicating the high stability of the system.