AF/AFRL perspective on RF photonics

The integration of radio frequency (RF) photonic components into Air Force receiver and transmitter systems has become more prevalent over the past decade as the requirement for improvements to cost-size-weight and power (CSWAP) are realistic technology challenges to defense systems. Examples of such hybrid architectures forge a novel trade space where performance becomes relevant to the proof-of-concept subsystem and the eventual prototype defense system demonstration. [1, 2, 3] Where photonics technology has made significant strides in military/aerospace systems is in the implementation of an RF fiber link to capture octaves of bandwidth with minimal transmission loss, and in precision reference oscillators which provide pico-second accuracy for wide bandwidth sampling and complex waveform synthesis. This paper will first describe the challenges of characterizing signals within a dense RF spectrum related to key receiver and transmitter parameters such as spur-free dynamic range and instantaneous dynamic range and then provide examples of the enabling photonics technologies and how they can be inserted into a receiver and/or waveform synthesis architecture. Comparison to trends of relevant commercially available electronic components to these RF photonic places perspective on where photonics can make an impact to future defense systems.