Functional flexible photonics-assisted frequency measurement based on combination of stimulated Brillouin scattering and a Mach–Zehnder interferometer

A functional flexible photonics-assisted frequency measurement (PFM) is proposed. Owing to polarisation multiplexing, the electro-optic (O/E) conversion can be performed in a single optical path, which endows the system high stability and concise configuration. Moreover, using a specially designed functional coarse/accurate frequency measurement (C/AFM) module, a large covering range, moderate accuracy, and fast response frequency measurement results can be ensured in a radar warning receiver (RWR), whereas high accurate results can be used in an electronic countermeasures receiver (ECMR). The simulation results show that a strict monotonous amplitude comparison function (ACF) can be constructed based on the structure of a Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) to map the signal frequency, with a measurement error of less than 0.2 GHz in the range of 1–31 GHz. This coarse measurement results can be used to perform radar warning. Based on this result, a highly accurate frequency measurement result is achieved through stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). The results reveal that the accuracy is improved to better than 20 MHz. Noteworthy, the C/AFM module consists of purely passive devices, which makes this system meet the potential of integration.