Photonic Integrated Analog-to-Information Receiver

As complexity and performance requirements increases for RF sensors and systems for electronic warfare applications, the need for innovative and low-power compressive sensing (CS) technologies will become urgent in power constrained mobile platforms. There are several DOD and government application areas where this holds true and the high-performance CS technology to be developed in this program can be utilized. As performance and maturity of CS hardware improves it is expected that even wider use within a wider range of DOD platforms will be advantageous. The overall objective of this program is to develop a prototype photonic-based CS analog-to-information receiver. Namely, a compact heterogeneously integrated module will be developed to co-integrate a custom photonic integrated circuit (PIC) and application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) together with best-in-class commercial electronics on a single compact circuit board substrate. The photonic integration platform proposed by Freedom Photonics will be of high impact with the potential to meet military needs for decades to come by offering an integrated optical solution which is entirely contained on chip level. This will make this technology similar and competitive to all electronic solutions in size and robustness.