Low coherence fiber optics for random noise radar

Coherent random noise radar has been developed at the University of Nebraska for the detection and identification of shallow subsurface objects such as land mines. Other application ranges from remote sensing synthetic aperture radar and high-resolution interferometer, to covert target tracking. In this paper, we describe the experimental investigation of a novel application of superfluorescent fiber or erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) light sources (SFS) for random noise radar. The ultra-wide band noise coupled with the use of optical fiber delay lines makes SFS ideally suited for random noise radar applications. The optical fiber makes long and multiple-step delay lines of a few kilometers feasible. Its advantage includes being extremely low-loss, compact and light-weight, and available at a much lower cost, while avoiding the dispersion and non-linearity associated with RF delay lines. We report the analysis and experimental results to characterize the resolution characteristics of the systems