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

Abstract

Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98)Prescribed by ANSI Std. Z39.18Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing this collection of information. 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. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) SPONSOR / MONITOR'S ACRONYM(S) 9. SPONSORING / MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) SPONSOR / MONITOR'S REPORT NUMBER(S)