Photonic generation of frequency- and phase-tunable phase-coded pulsed microwave signal

A novel photonic approach based on optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) to generate phase-coded pulsed microwave signals with tunable frequency and phase is proposed in the paper. The frequency of the microwave signal can be tuned by changing the wavelength of the optical carrier. The modulating signal is applied to a polarization modulator (PolM) for the generation of the phase-coded optical signal with a tunable phase. The modulated optical signal is sent to the photodetector through an electronically tunable polarizer. By tuning the principal axis of the electronically tunable polarizer, the intensity-modulated signal is obtained, which leads to the generation of the pulsed microwave signal with tunable frequency and phase. The generation of the phase-coded pulsed microwave signals is simulated at MATLAB environment. The approach proposed in this paper has a significant value for phased array beam forming and arrayed signal processing.