Hybrid optical-RF system for generating an improved linear frequency modulated pulses for radar applications

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach for generating a linear frequency modulated (LFM) pulse. The generated pulse is characterized by a large bandwidth and frequency linearity. The LFM pulses can be used for a variety of applications such as synthetic aperture radar, ultra wideband radar etc. The obtained improvements are obtained by a hybrid optical-RF configuration. The suggested optical setup not only significantly enlarges the bandwidth of the produced chirp beam, but also allows us to tune its carrier frequency.