Development of a Frequency Agile RF-Photonic Digital Transceiver

We discuss progress in developing a frequency agile RF-photonic digital transceiver. This system integrates a photonic converter element, radio frequency (RF) preselector and commercial off-the-shelf, multi-channel digital system to create a wideband, frequency-agile, single-hardware system. The approach allows for both agile tuning of the 2-GHz instantaneous bandwidth to anywhere within the operational range of 0.2-67 GHz and spectrum monitoring of the full operational bandwidth through spectrum Nyquist folding. We detail system design and tradeoffs including RF preselector design, photonic downconverter and upconverter design, and digital hardware integration. System performance metrics are shared including effective number of bits, and spur free dynamic as well as application demonstrations including communications and sensing. This work is unique in that it integrates state-of-the-art RF filtering technology, photonic sampling techniques, and reconfigurable digital hardware in a single operational system.