Extreme Bandwidth Radio Frequency Spectrum Analyzer with Direction Finding

A novel radio frequency sensor technology is presented for continuous monitoring of the radio frequency spectrum with large instantaneous bandwidth that can perform spectral analysis and direction finding simultaneously. The photonic receiver technology relies on a spatial spectral (S2) holographic crystal recording device that is an extreme bandwidth analyzer and correlator (EBAC). The S2 EBAC technology presently operates on instantaneous bandwidths (IBW) over >16 GHz that is analyzed directly anywhere from 0-40 GHz, with 10 kHz-10 MHz resolution bandwidth (RBW) and frame rate (FR) from 2-500 kHz. The IBW, RBW and FR are fully reconfigurable on the fly, with the net result of a digital data output stream of ~100 million frequency measurements per second. Typical SA performance results show >50 dB two-tone spur free dynamic range (SFDR) over the full IBW, and >62 dB SFDR has been measured in recent experimental work. Direction finding (DF) for each of the ~100 million frequencies per second is an advanced capability described and demonstrated here. The combined SA and DF results to date show similar performance to SA in IBW, RBW and FR, with <1 picosecond arrival time-difference-ofarrival measurements at each and every resolvable frequency. Status and improvements to the EBAC system in both performance and packaging are discussed.