The Impact of Wavelength Division Multiplexing on Fiber Optic Radar Remoting

Some military radars presently employ frequency division multiplexing (fdm) and time division multiplexing (tdm) techniques, while others simply use multiple wire paths to remote the radars from their operations shelters (OPS). In addition to electronic multiplexing techniques, optical wavelength division multiplexing (wdm) is considered here as a candidate approach for further development in fiber optic radar remoting. For a large number of signals, one or two levels of electronic multiplexing are appropriate followed by a final layer of multiplexing selected from wdm, tdm, or fdm. Several of the radars considered already use electronic multiplexing to reduce the number of signal paths down to two or three. The wdm approach introduces the additional possibility of bidirectional transmission on a single fiber to reduce cabling costs and connectoring requirements, and because of its compatibility with any signal type, it has the potential to become a universal multiplexer approach suitable for use in all the radars considered here.