Photonics-assisted analog windowing and matched filtering

In this paper, we propose an integrated method for windowing and matched filtering in the analog domain based on microwave photonic technology, which utilizes dispersion regulation of optical waveguide to achieve the windowing processing of broadband signals in the optical domain and the surface acoustic wave filter (SAWF) to achieve the following matched filtering processing in the radio frequency (RF) domain, thus realizing their integration processing in the analog domain. The proposed method is validated by simulation and experiment, in which the integrated processing of matched filtering and windowing in the analog domain for a linear frequency modulation (LFM) signal with a bandwidth of 1 GHz is carried out and the peak to sidelobe ratio (PSLR) of the output signal is -19.55 dB and the mainlobe width (MLW) broadens to 0.16 ns with the maximum achievable dispersion value. The proposed method can significantly reduce the pressure of signal processing at the back-end of the radar system and improve the response speed of the broadband radar system in detecting the targets.