Broadband LFM Radar Imaging System Based on Microwave Photonic I/Q De-chirping

We propose a novel scheme of broadband LFM radar imaging system based on microwave photonic I/Q de-chirping. In the transmitter, a broadband linear frequency modulated signal is generated by photonic frequency-doubling. In the receiver, echoes reflected from the target are simultaneously sent to a couple of modulators in two polarization states. After the bias voltage of the corresponding modulator is adjusted to introduce a 90° phase difference, photonic I/Q de-chirping reception of radar echoes is achieved. The proposed radar is capable of real-time high-resolution detection and can distinguish the target on both sides of a reference point. The range ambiguity problem caused by image interference in current radar with photonic de-chirping reception is solved. In this study, first, the necessity of I/Q de-chirping is demonstrated. Then, the structure and principle of the proposed photonic-based radar are introduced. A K-band radar with a bandwidth of 8 GHz is established, and an experiment on target detection and inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging is conducted. Results show that the system can effectively suppress the interference from image frequencies.