A Novel low-noise, fast-tuning, wideband Tuner based on Tunable Opto-Electronic Oscillator

Leveraging Agiltron’s recent breakthrough in manufacturing low cost fiber optic digital delay lines and variable optical attenuators as well as the drastic improvement in cost and performance of commercial optical components, and the leadership of M/A-COM in the ELINT tuner, we propose to develop a low-noise, fast-tuning, wideband tuner based on opto-electronic oscillator and photonic tunable high-Q wideband RF filter for the US Army’s EW applications. Agiltron proposes to develop a novel photonic microwave signal generator that will replace the conventional electronic generator in established tuner designs from M/A-COM. The proposed approach provides a tunable source with ultra-high purity signal from 20 MHz to 20 GHz, potentially up to 75GHz for fast tuning. The practicality of such an opto-electronic oscillator module including high-Q tunable filter will be demonstrated in this program. A working testing tuner module is targeted in Phase I for the evaluation of the technical approach, and a low phase noise (<-140dBc/Hz at 10 KHz offset), fast tuning tuner module will be demonstrated in Phase II. Success in this program will significantly reduce mission cost and increase performance and utility of future radar systems.