Photonics-based dual-band radar demonstration for maritime traffic detection

A fully coherent dual band radar system based on a single photonic-assisted transceiver is presented and detailed. The proposed architecture allows simultaneous generation and detection of radar signals in the S- and X-band. The sharing of a single transceiver for both the frequency bands provides a perfect coherence among the generated waveforms, allowing improved data fusion techniques. In field experimental results of the prototype in an operative maritime scenario are presented and discussed, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of photonic approach.