A hybrid electro-optical ESM intercept-receiver proposal

A hybrid electrooptical ESM intercept receiver is presented which utilizes two parallel optoelectronic subprocessors in the front-end to digitize the autocorrelation function and the bispectrum of the wavefront (and not the signal itself) in real-time to be processed by a digital processor. Wavefront-correlation subprocessor output results based on simulation with a high-resolution spectral estimator (modified Yule-Walker) under various broadband signal-to-noise ratios and pulse densities are presented to demonstrate the superiority of such an approach. The false targets resulting from a second-order nonlinear phase coupling can be identified through higher-order spectra (bispectra). The wavefront-bispectral subprocessor identifies these false targets in real time. Simulation output results are also shown. The combined use of high-speed (but limited-precision) optical processing and low-speed (but high-precision) digital electronics can lead to improved dynamic range, high resolution, and the ability to track, detect, and properly classify high-density time-varying signals. Throughput rate, sensitivity, and frequency measurement error analysis are also discussed.<>