Wideband distributed RF photonic frequency converters for satellite communications applications

Abstract

Satellite communications are providing higher data rates through the use of higher frequency bands and higher order modulation schemes [1]. There may be a need to distribute antennas over hundreds of meters to kilometers, for example in a goniometric system for direction finding applications [2]. Radio frequency (RF) photonics may be used as a distributed gateway to access these high frequency bands while maintaining the signal quality needed to recover higher order modulations. We report the improvement of an all-electronic satellite communication terminal with high performance remoting RF photonic frequency converters.