Radar on a Chip

This proposal is a collaboration between OEwaves, UC-Davis, and NASA Goddard for design, development, and demonstration of a radar on chip based on photonics technology. Recent demonstration of a high performance widely tunable photonic local oscillator (LO) at OEwaves is the basis for an architecture to realize a radar receiver/transmitter system on a photonic integrated circuit (PIC). Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) technology provides the most competitive opportunity to reduce the size, weight and power (SWaP) for future generations of multi-frequency radars and wideband radiometers, which are the most effective sensors for measuring key parameters in the Earth's atmospheric composition, hydrological cycle, and surface deformation and changes. Our vision is to tailor this technology for cloud (W-band) and precipitation (Ku-/Ka-band) radar, active and passive water vapor measurements (G-band), active atmospheric pressure radar (V-band), and passive temperature sounding (V-band). The proposed architecture consists of two ultra-narrow linewidth lasers to generate the LO via photo-mixing on a photodetector. The carrier frequency is set by the frequency interval difference of the two lasers. By modulating the light output of one of the lasers the waveform of interest will be imprinted on the (microwave) carrier. This microwave output of the detector will be amplified and introduced to the antenna for transmission. The received microwave signal will be used to modulate the laser light before photo-mixing with LO in a second photodetector for production of the baseband signal, which can subsequently fed to the digital signal processing subsystem of radar. There are several unique benefits of this architecture:1) Ultra-narrow line lasers result in generation of highly spectrally pure microwave carriers, beyond what is achievable with electronic oscillators; 2) it can operate in coherent or direct detection mode with any waveform of interest; 3) heterogeneous chip integration significantly reduces size, weight and power by multiple orders of magnitude; 4 ) compatibility with semiconductor manufacturing process significantly reduces future production costs; 5) any frequency between 10GHz- 350 GHz can be supported for operation, limited only by the bandwidth of the photo-mixer and the high power amplifier, and the antenna; 6) a PIC radar transmitter/receiver supports the work already underway at NASA for realization of a low SWAP phased array radar for ultimate application on all space vehicles, including mini - satellites. In this project we propose developing a PIC for coherent frequency up-/down-conversion compatible with operating frequencies up to W-band. This device would replace multiple radar components providing improved performance and significantly reducing size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) by removing the need for multiple RF phase-locked oscillators, multipliers and mixers. The PIC will operate on a probe station with external drive electronics, amplifiers and antenna to demonstrate its functionality and verify its performance. The collaboration includes system design and integration and components tests by OEwaves, chip design and fabrication and fabrication of the radar PIC at UC-Davis, and system Test and verification of performance at Goddard. This concept will begin at TRL level 1-2, and will end at TRL3-4, at the end of the three-year (36 months) program.

Accelerate mission development and reduce risk by developing critical components and subsystems for advanced instruments and observing systems

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