The feasibility of developing a photonics-based, real-time, high-power-radio-frequency (HPRF)/high-power-microwave (HPM) detection-and-analysis system is to be investigated. Design and development of foundational elements will take place to demonstrate how self-contained, shielded, photonic and source-power subsystems, interconnected to a network of non-polarimetric sensors via optical fiber, will be able to capture data related to the magnitude of the attack and its source location and then distribute HPRF/HPM warnings. The system will geo-locate the attack (for both azimuth and elevation/declination angles and range) without utilizing a multiplicity of potentially large and unwieldy antennas, and it will store information on the electromagnetic characteristics of the attack for additional analysis.
Benefit: The R&D undertaken as a result of this program will dramatically impact the state-of-the-art of photonics-based electromagnetic-field sensors, not only from the standpoint of technological specifications such as angular geo-location and dynamic range but also from the perspective of the cost-effective implementation of strategically constructed, simultaneously interrogated field sensors. Information obtained from the nonperturbing, photonics-based, HPRF/HPM-transient characterization system will identify, for the first time, the undistorted characteristics of broadband, high-power electromagnetic attacks. Precise knowledge of the HPRF-transient temporal characteristics, magnitude, and source-direction and range will significantly aid the future defense against such threats. Commercially, products resulting from the development of a photonics-based, real-time, HPRF/HPM threat-warning-and-characterization system will address numerous military and civilian applications. They will assist in research applications, for instance through measurements of strong electromagnetic fields that could appear both at the surface of humans, as well as at the interior of human surrogates (i.e., phantoms). For development applications, nonintrusive fiber-based sensors may be used in a small-area substitute for the very large areas required for far-field-beam measurements for example by placing a sensor array in the near field of prototype antennas in order to extract the amplitude and phase of the emerging radiation before computing the propagation into the far field. As a diagnostic instrument, the photonic sensors could be used to periodically calibrate antenna arrays, since the noninvasive probes can be placed close enough to individual array elements that they can quantify deficiencies in magnitudes and/or undesired phase shifts in the field outputs of distinct unit cells without disturbing their operation.
Keywords: High-Power Microwaves, High-Power Microwaves, electromagnetic-transient detection, photonics, electro-optic probe, optical-fiber sensors, microwave geo-location, noninvasive sensing
