A Combined Radar & Lidar System Based on Integrated Photonics in Silicon-on-Insulator

This work reports the first realization of a combined radar&lidar system based on silicon-on-insulator photonic integrated circuit (PIC). The software-defined architecture comprises a frequency-flexible and simultaneous multi-band radar operation and an advanced lidar with coherent detection for range and velocity measurements. Both systems are implemented within a single chip, allowing a coherent radar and lidar parallel data acquisition in order to take advantage of their complementary characteristics. This feature potentializes the study of complex environments providing a more complete cognition of the target or scene under observation. Here, we present the first sets of results of the radar and lidar subsystems characterization without any auxiliary frontend that confirms the large frequency flexibility of the radar system and the great potentiality for high resolution range and velocity measurements of the lidar system. These results open the way to an innovative generation of transceivers in the field of microwave photonics, potentially outperforming current systems thanks to its multiband and multifunction capability owing to a unique hybrid radar&lidar coherent architecture. Moreover, by operating in the photonic domain, radar and lidar subsystems are able to share the same optical source and digital electronics unit, allowing for an ultimate reduction of size, weight, and power consumption, thus making the proposed architecture suitable for the most stringent applications.