Abstract

Modern radar systems typically use linear frequency modulated (LFM) waveforms since the inherent pulse compression capability of LFM allows high range resolution and accurate target tracking. The radar system is required to be operated in different frequency bands to achieve multiple functionalities such as surveillance, tracking, target detection, imaging, and weather monitoring [1]. Conventional multi-band LFM waveforms are generated through multi-stage voltage-controlled oscillators and filtered through electrical filters resulting in poor performance, limited reconfigurability, suffering from frequency-dependent losses, and electromagnetic interference (EMI) [2]. Microwave photonics has emerged as a possible solution to these issues [3]. Electro-optic modulators (EOM) allow for frequency multiplication and provide LFM waveform generation at different carrier frequencies with a tunable bandwidth and simple architecture with high linearity [3].

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