Design and Validation of Rugged Microwave Photonic Network for Phased-Array Radar

Abstract

Military radar has the requirement of 24 × 7 operation in harsh environments with a high level of safety and integrity built in for equipment and personnel working with it. This article presents an application of a microwave photonic network for phased-array military radar. The design challenge is to realize faithful reproduction of the input microwave signals over extreme temperature and frequency ranges. Environmental testing has been carried out to validate the performance of the proposed microwave photonic network over 2–4 GHz and a temperature range of –20°C to +55°C. The result shows that the photonic network can be successfully utilized for phased-array radar.

Keywords:

• antenna remoting
• microwave photonics
• radar and safety
• radio over fiber
• wavelength division multiplexing

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Manisha Mathur

Manisha Mathur received her B.E. in electronics and communication engineering from M.I.T.S. Gwalior, India (1990), and her M.Tech. in digital communication from M.A.N.I.T. Bhopal, India (1992). Presently, she is working as a D.G.M. at Bharat Electronics Limited, Ghaziabad, India, since 1992, and is currently leading a team for design and development of active aperture phased-array radar. Her areas of interest include radar signal processing, radar system design, and photonic systems.

J. K. Rai

J. K. Rai received his B.E. in electronics engineering from Shri Guru Gobind Singh College of Engineering and Technology, Nanded, India (1996), his M.Tech. in electronics engineering from Visvesvaraya Regional College of Engineering, Nagpur, India (1999), and his doctoral degree from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Deemed University Allahabad (2011). Presently, he is working as a professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Amity School of Engineering and Technology, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida, India. He has published various papers in peer-reviewed international journals and conferences. His current research interests include robotics, medical image and signal processing, and communication engineering.

N. Sridhar

N. Sridhar completed his M.Sc (phy-electronics) in 1977, his M. Phil (phy-microwaves) in 1979, and his Ph.D in (microwave antenna field) in 1983 from the Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi. He was involved in the design and realization of many fixed-beam, scanning-beam antennas for LOS and Satcom applications, tactical deployable antennas, and linear and planar phased-array antennas for radar applications. Presently, he is working as addl gen. manager of qual. sys., supporting all the manufacturing divisions of Bharat Electronics Ltd, Ghaziabad Unit. He has a number of publications in peer-reviewed international journals and conferences. His current research interests include microwave multi beam antennas and active phased-array antenna implementations.