Analysis of Analog Photonic Links Employing Multiple-Channel (Arrayed) Receivers

摘要

Analog photonic links have seen increased application to military systems in recent years. While virtually all deployed systems utilize optical fiber as the transmission medium, for example in antenna remoting applications, there is increased interest in applying these links in free-space applications. For free-space systems, the received optical power may be significantly below that in fiber-based applications; this necessitates new receiver and amplification architectures to obtain the required receiver sensitivity. One solution is the use of arrayed receivers, i.e., those employing multiple receive channels (analogous to the use of phased arrays in radar systems), each with an optical amplifier to boost the received optical signal level. While analog links utilizing single-channel and balanced receivers have been thoroughly analyzed, arrayed receiver architectures have received far less attention. In this work, we provide a complete noise analysis of multiple- channel receivers employing optical amplifiers and provide experimental verification of the achievable increase in sensitivity of these architectures.