Remote Radar Based on Chaos Generation

and Radio Over Fiber

Volume 6, Number 5, October 2014
Mingjiang Zhang, Member, IEEE
Yongning Ji
Yongning Zhang
Yuan Wu
Hang Xu
Weipeng Xu

DOI: 10.1109/JPHOT.2014.2352628
1943-0655 2014 IEEE

IEEE Photonics Journal

Radar Based on Chaos and Radio Over Fiber

Remote Radar Based on Chaos Generation

and Radio Over Fiber
Mingjiang Zhang,1,2 Member, IEEE, Yongning Ji,1,2 Yongning Zhang,1,2
Yuan Wu,1 Hang Xu,1 and Weipeng Xu1
1

Key Lab of Advanced Transducers and Intelligent Control System, Ministry of Education and
Shanxi Province, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
2
Institute of Optoelectronic Engineering, College of Physics and Optoelectronics,
Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China

DOI: 10.1109/JPHOT.2014.2352628
1943-0655 2014 IEEE. Translations and content mining are permitted for academic research only.
Personal use is also permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

Manuscript received July 2, 2014; revised August 8, 2014; accepted August 9, 2014. Date of current version September 8, 2014. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (NSFC) under Grant 61108027, Grant 61227016, Grant 61205142, and Grant 61377089;
by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation under Grant 2011M500048; by the Program for
the Top Young Academic Leaders of Higher Learning Institutions of Shanxi (TYAL) under Grant
2012lfjyt08; and by the Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems of the Ministry of Education and Guangdong Province under Grant GD201305. Corresponding author: M. Zhang (e-mail:
zhangmingjiang@tyut.edu.cn).

Abstract: An ultrawideband (UWB) radar system for remote ranging based on

microwave-photonic chaotic signal generation and fiber-optic distribution is proposed
and demonstrated experimentally. In this system, an optical-feedback semiconductor
laser with optical injection in the central office generates photonic UWB chaos as probing
signal, and two single-mode fibers transport the optical signal to the remote antenna
monitoring terminal and return the corresponding echoed signal back to the central
office. In the remote antenna terminal, the photonic signal is transformed into microwave
chaos by a fast photodetector and then launched to target by a transmitting antenna,
and the echoed signal received by another antenna is converted into optical domain by
modulating a laser diode. The target ranging is achieved at the central office by correlating the echoed signal with the reference signal. We experimentally realize a detection
range of 8 m, for a free-space target, after 24-km remote distance, and achieve a ranging resolution of 3 cm for single target and 8 cm for double targets. In another fiber link
branch with 15-km fiber transmission, we obtained the 2-cm ranging resolution for a
single target.
Index Terms: Chaos, remote radar, semiconductor lasers.

1. Introduction
The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) defines ultra-wideband (UWB) as any signal
that occupies more than 500 MHz of 10 dB bandwidth or with a fractional bandwidth beyond
20% [1]. UWB technology has many advantages, such as high rate, low complexity, low cost
and low power consumption, immunity to multipath fading, low probability of intercept, high
range resolution, etc. [2]. Therefore, UWB technology is widely used in such fields as high
speed wireless communication [3], [4], sensor networks [5], through-wall imaging radar [6], [7],
high precision positioning [8], [9], and ranging radar [10], [11].
The UWB ranging radar can be roughly divided into three categories based on the detecting
signal waveform: impulse signal radar, random signal radar, and chaotic radar. Using FCC

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conforming UWB pulses, Low et al. presented an algorithm for precise determination of the distance between a pair of UWB antennas [12]. The probing signal of random signal radar is a
noise or modulated by a low frequency random/pseudo-random noise [13]. For example,
Narayanan et al. demonstrated a UWB random noise radar and obtained a 15 cm ranging resolution [14]. Chaotic radar has aroused great interests, due to its advantages such as high range
resolution, good anti-jamming ability, and thumbtack ambiguity function [15], [16]. Moreover,
chaotic signal with more than 10 GHz bandwidth can be obtained by utilizing nonlinear laser
dynamics, which will meet the demand of higher range accuracy. Lin et al. proposed a chaotic
radar based on laser chaos and achieved a range resolution of 9 cm [17].
Although UWB technology has many advantages, by wireless transmission, UWB signals can
only transmit over a short distance from a few meters to tens of meters. In order to broaden the
effective coverage of UWB signals, researchers proposed and demonstrated UWB-over-fiber for
UWB wireless communications [18][20]. To distribute UWB signals via optical fiber, it is highly
desired that the UWB signals can be directly generated in optical domain. And then, various
methods for photonic UWB signals generation have been presented in recent years [21][28].
Similarly, for the UWB ranging radar, in order to obtain antenna remote control, the optical
fiber would be the perfect distribution medium compared with the RF cable. As a kind of low
loss and broad bandwidth medium, the optical fiber can transmit the photonic UWB signals over
long distance from central office to antenna unit of radar system to realizing the antenna remoting. In 2012, Grodensky et al. [29] proposed and demonstrated a remote ranging microwavephotonic UWB noise radar based on the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) associated with
the optical gain of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers
(EDFAs). Through 10-km optical fiber distribution, and within 3-m spatial distance, the range
resolutions of 10 cm using EDFA-ASE and of 20 cm utilizing SBS-ASE were obtained respectively. In our preliminary experiments, we proposed a UWB microwave-photonic chaotic radar
for remote ranging [30] and for remote water-level monitoring [31]. In 2014, Zheng et al. demonstrated a fiber-distributed UWB noise radar, which has a space resolution with cm-level
after 3-km fiber transmission [32]. In this paper, we demonstrate a microwave-photonic chaotic
UWB radar system for remote ranging based on the chaotic signal generation and fiber-optic
distribution, which has potential for military radar, hilltop under the bad conditions, the radar systems in islands, dangerous areas and harsh industrial environment. The chaotic UWB signals
are generated by using an optically injected semiconductor laser with optical feedback in the
central office. A long distance, two-way fiber link is utilized for antenna-remoting. Within 24 km
fiber distribution and 8 m free space transmission, range resolutions of 3 cm for single-target
detecting and 8 cm for double-target detecting are achieved in a proof-of-concept experiment.
And in another fiber link branch with 15 km fiber, we obtain 2 cm space resolution along 6.5 m
free space range for single target detecting. This radar system that combines the UWB-overfiber technology with chaos ranging not only implements the antenna remote control but gains a
high ranging resolution as well.

2. Experimental Setup and Principle

The schematic diagram of the proposed microwave-photonic chaotic UWB radar system for remote ranging is shown in Fig. 1(a). In this system, a chaotic laser generator in central office
emits photonic UWB chaos as probing signal. The photonic UWB signal is transported to remote
antenna unit and the target corresponding echoed signal is returned back to the central office
via two-way fiber link. In the remote antenna units, the chaotic UWB signal launched to target
by transmitter, and the echoed signal is obtained by receiver. The target ranging can be
achieved at the central office by correlating the echoed signal with reference signal. Moreover,
the probing signal can be distributed to different fiber link branch by using a 1 : N optical switch,
which could construct multi-remoting-antenna units.
Fig. 1(b) shows a proof-of-concept experimental setup of microwave-photonic chaotic UWB
radar for remote ranging in a fiber link branch. In central office unit, a chaotic laser generator

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Fig. 1. (a) Schematic diagram of the proposed microwave-photonic chaotic UWB radar system for
remote ranging. (b) Experimental setup of microwave-photonic chaotic UWB radar for remote ranging. SMF: Single Mode Fiber; VOA: Variable Optical Attenuator; PD: photo detector; LNA: Low
Noise Amplifier; TA: Transmitting Antenna; RA: Receiving Antenna; LD: Laser Diode; EDFA:
Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier; OSC: Oscilloscope.

based on an optically injected semiconductor laser with optical feedback [27] is used as the
source of photonic chaotic UWB signal, which can emit broadband chaos up to about 20 GHz.
A distributed feedback laser diode (DFB-LD) subject to optical feedback with a fiber ring cavity
is used as a chaotic laser (the slave LD). Another DFB-LD is employed as an injection laser
(the master LD) to enhance the bandwidth of the chaotic laser by injecting continuous-wave light
into the slave LD through a 50/50 optical fiber coupler. The power and the polarization state of
injection light can be controlled by a variable optical attenuator (VOA1) and a polarization controller (PC1), respectively. The feedback strength can be adjusted by an erbium-doped optical
fiber amplifier (EDFA1) and the VOA2. The PC2 is used to control the polarization state of the
feedback light into the slave LD. The output chaotic signal is split into two branches by a 20/80
optical fiber coupler. By adjusting the 1 : 2 optical switch to the fiber link branch 1, then the light
in this path is transmitted over a 24 km single mode fiber (SMF1) towards the remote antenna
unit as a detecting signal. This light is detected by a broadband photodetector (PD1). The converted electrical chaotic signal is amplified by a low noise amplifier (LNA1) and then transmitted
by a directional transmitting antenna (TA) towards the target 1. When the detecting signal
reaches the target 1, it will be partly reflected back. The reflected signal is collected by another
directional receiving antenna (RA), amplified by a second low noise amplifier (LNA2) and converted into optical signal via a high-speed modulated laser diode (LD). The optical signal is
transmitted back towards the central office over another 24 km single mode fiber (SMF2),
through another optical switch, after amplified by EDFA2, and then detected by the PD3. Chaotic signal in the other reference path is detected by the PD2 after a 48 km single mode fiber
which is a delay fiber as a reference within the central office. A signal analyzer (Agilent
N9020A) is used to observe the power spectra of the signals. The two branches converted
electrical chaotic UWB signals are sampled and stored by using a real time oscilloscope (OSC,
LeCroy SDA806 Zi-A). The distance of target can be obtained based on the cross-correlation
peaks of detecting signal and reference signal. Moreover, another fiber link branch 2 is constructed using two section fibers of 15 km (SMF3 and SMF4) with transmitter 2 and receiver 2
to measure the distance of target 2. By adjusting the optical switches to corresponding channel,
we can realize different target remote ranging in different areas.
Because of the sharp autocorrelation of chaotic signal and the similar thumbtack function of
the time sequence and its delay sequence of chaotic signal, we can take a cross-correlation calculation to determine the position of the reflection events [33], [34]. Now we consider the reference signal X t as the function of time t , so the detecting signal carrying the target distance
information has a function of a as a  X t 
, where a is the loss factor and
is the propagation
delay time of the microwave signal in the air. Hence, the correlation can be expressed as
X t  a  X t 
 a  
:

(1)

The peaks of the correlation curves denote the position of targets. Therefore the distance from
the antenna to the target is c 
=2, where c is the speed of electromagnetic waves in vacuum

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Fig. 2. Detecting signal features of point B in Fig. 1. (a) Time series. (b) Power spectra of the chaotic detecting signal obtained experimentally with detuning frequency f 7:1 GHz, optical power of
injection P 1:76 dBm, and feedback strength 11:55 dBm. The gray curve in (b) is the noise floor.
(c) Autocorrelation trace of the chaotic state. (d) Amplitude histogram of time series..

(consider that the speed of electromagnetic wave in the air is approximately equal to the speed
in vacuum). At the beginning of the experiment, the system is calibrated by placing a target at a
known distance. In experimental setup, the delay fiber is employed to compensate the optical
path difference between the reference light and the probe light. If the length of delay fiber is not
equal to the length of two single-mode fibers which transport the optical signal to remote
antenna and return the corresponding echoed signal back to the central office, we have to correct the computational model to take into account the optical path difference between the reference light and the probe light, thus to obtain the correct distance from the remote antenna to
the target.

3. Experimental Results
3.1. Characteristics of the Detecting Signal
In the experiments, the slave LD is biased at 1.4 times of its threshold current, and its output
wavelength is stabilized at 1549.770 nm by a precise temperature controller. The detecting signal features of microwave-photonic chaotic UWB radar system for remote ranging are shown in
Fig. 2. As can be seen, the waveform shown in Fig. 2(a) has a noise-like feature. In Fig. 2(b).
the blue curve is the power spectra of the chaotic detecting signal obtained experimentally with
detuning frequency f 7:1 GHz, optical power of injection P 1:76 dBm, and feedback
strength 11.55 dBm, while the output power of chaotic laser is 0.79 dBm. The gray curve is
the noise floor of the signal analyzer. As can be seen, the power spectral density is rather flat
and smooth in the range from 1 GHz to near 19 GHz. The signal below 1 GHz is filtered by
LNA1. Fig. 2(c) is the autocorrelation trace of the time series shown in Fig. 2(a) with a correlation length of 20 s. No apparent side-lobes are seen except a narrow and sharp peak. With its
very low side-lobe level, target location can be done without ambiguity. From the full-width at

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Fig. 3. Ranging results of single-target experiments of (a) fiber link branch 1 with 24 km fiber and
(b) fiber link branch 2 with 15 km fiber.

half-maximum (FWHM) of the peak showed in the illustration of Fig. 2(c) a range resolution of
0.6 cm is derived, which is limited by the bandwidth of the real-time oscilloscope. Fig. 2(d)
shows an amplitude histogram of the chaotic UWB, which is a Gaussian-like statistics, so the
chaotic UWB signal generated in this way makes a good randomicity.

3.2. Ranging Results of Single-Target Experiments

Fig. 3 shows the single-target ranging results of microwave-photonic chaotic UWB radar system for remote ranging with a 35 cm  35 cm metal plate as a target. Fig. 3(a) shows the ranging results of target 1 in the fiber link branch 1 with 24 km fiber, as can be seen, with the target
of 1.01 m, 2.01 m, 2.52 m, and 3.06 m away from the radar antenna respectively, the target's
distance can be identified unambiguously. As can be seen, the location of the target is indicated
clearly by the peaks of cross-correlation traces. Moreover, the side-lobes are really quite low
relative to the main peaks. Due to the UWB signals attenuation in the free space, the peak of
the cross-correlation decreases with the increase of the distance from the target to the antenna.
Moreover, the ranging results of target 2 in the fiber link branch 2 with 15 km fiber is shown
in Fig. 3(b). When we place the target 2 in different location, such as 0.69 m, 2.15 m, 3.65 m,
5.20 m, and 6.50 m, the distance can be detected clearly.

3.3. Ranging Results of Double-Targets Experiments

Fig. 4. shows the double-target ranging results of microwave-photonic chaotic UWB radar
system for remote ranging with two 35 cm  35 cm metal plates as targets in the fiber link
branch 1. Note that the second target cannot be in a straight line behind the first one. Otherwise, the second target will not be detected because of the electromagnetic shielding. The blue
curve is the ranging results of 1.51 m and 1.65 m, while the red curve is the ranging results of
2.20 m and 2.35 m. The locations of the two targets are indicated clearly by the peaks of the
two cross-correlation traces. The results show that the ranging of double-target is suitable and
feasible for our radar system.
The ranging results of two different targets is shown in Fig. 5. In Fig. 5(a), the two targets are
no longer metal plates, one target is still a 35 cm  35 cm metal plate, but the other target is
the air shower wall, and the metal plate is placed inside the air shower while the doors of the air
shower are open. The transmitting antenna and receiving antenna are aligned with the target
plate, the distance of the air shower is 3.89 m and the distance of target metal plate is 4.09 m.
Due to the reflected signal of metal plate is stronger than the air shower, the peak of the metal
plate is higher. Moreover, we investigate the remote ranging with a polyfoam and metal plate as
targets, in which the metal plate as second target is in a straight line behind the polyfoam as the
first target. Fig. 5(b) shows the ranging results, as can be seen, we have measured the distance
of polyfoam with 1.33 m and metal plate with 1.58 m. That means the probing UWB signal and

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Fig. 4. Ranging results of double-target experiments.

Fig. 5. The ranging results of two different targets as (a) air shower wall and metal plate placed
inside air shower. (b) Polyfoam and metal plate.

its echoed signal can through the polyfoam. In this case, even if the second target is hidden
behind the polyfoam, it will be measured. That indicates this approach has the potential for measuring the distance of the concealed military remote targets.

3.4. Spatial Range Resolution

For the correlation theory of ranging, the spatial resolution of chaotic signal is determined by
the FWHM of the autocorrelation curve [17]. The narrower the FWHM of the main peak is, the
higher the spatial resolution of the chaotic radar system becomes. According to the Wiener
Khinchin theorem, the signal's autocorrelation function and its power spectra are a pair of
Fourier transform, so the FWHM of the autocorrelation function depends primarily on the bandwidth of chaotic signal, the wider the bandwidth of the chaotic signal, the narrower the FWHM of
autocorrelation function, so the higher the spatial resolution. From the FWHM of the autocorrelation curves showed in the illustration of Fig. 2(c) we could achieve a spatial resolution of 0.6 cm
even in the best case.
But in the experiment, due to the effect of interfering signals and the dispersion of transmission cable used, especially the dispersion of optical fibers in the fiber link branch and the reference optical path, the actual range resolution will be much lower than 0.6 cm. Fig. 6 shows the
spatial range resolution of single-target detecting. In Fig. 6(a), the red and blue curves denote
the distance of the target 1 with 1.49 m and 1.52 m away from the transmitter 1 and receiver 1

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Fig. 6. The spatial range resolution of single-target ranging of (a) fiber link branch 1 with 24 km fiber
and (b) fiber link branch 2 with 15 km fiber.

Fig. 7. The spatial range resolution of double-target ranging.

in fiber link branch 1, respectively. It is 3 cm between the two main correlation curve peaks,
which is the minimum distance that can be clearly distinguished when we move the target 1.
Due to the practical spatial resolution is determined by the FWHM of the cross correlation curve
of probing chaotic signal and reference chaotic signal, when the length of transmission cables
and fibers is fixed, and the used transceiver devices are not changed, the spatial range resolution of single-target ranging could not be variational while the target in different free space location. In experiments, we achieve a 3 cm range resolution for single-target detecting along 8 m
full free space detection range after 24 km fiber transmission. However, when the fiber link
branch 2 with 15 km fiber is employed to measure the distance of target 2, the spatial range resolution of single-target ranging is changed. As can be seen from Fig. 6(b), the spatial resolution
is 2 cm, which owes to the length reduction of transmission fibers and reference delay fiber.
The length decrease of optical fibers should contribute to reducing the chaotic light dispersion,
thus the FWHM of the cross correlation curve of probing chaotic signal and reference chaotic
signal will become narrow. And then the spatial resolution will be improved.
Furthermore, in order to analyze the system's resolution ability in the multi-targets detecting,
just as the two metal plates as targets experiments in the fiber link branch 1, we gradually make
the distance between the two goals smaller. The correlation curve of spatial range resolution for
double-target ranging in the experiment is shown in Fig. 7. The minimum distance between the
two peaks which can be distinguished from the side-lobes obviously is 8 cm. When we further
reduce the distance between the two targets, the two peaks cannot be distinguished clearly.

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Fig. 8. Dynamic range measurements of experiments (the red curve is the fitted linear function, and
the black spots are obtained by the experimental data).

This is because when the two targets are close to each other, the main peak and the side-lobes
of the correlation curve will both approach each other. The main peak will be covered when the
side-lobes superpose on each other in the same position and they will be higher than the main
peak. As a result, the peaks cannot be distinguished clearly. Therefore, we get an 8 cm resolution for the double-target detecting of the system experimentally.

3.5. Dynamic Range of Remote Radar

In order to assess the actual measurable range of chaotic detecting signal with the average
power of 6.2 dBm in the conditions of the existing experimental setup, we make single measurement experiments with the same target at the different space distance of 0.69 m, 1.57 m,
2.02 m, 2.51 m, 3.11 m, 3.63 m, 4.11 m, 4.60 m, 5.24 m, 5.80 m, 6.54 m, 7.08 m, 7.61 m, and
8.18 m, respectively. Through the relation between space distance and peak side-lobe level
(PSL) which measures the ratio of the correlation peak to the maximum side-lobe, we get the
dynamic range measurement of the radar system under the average power. The results are
plotted in Fig. 8. As can be seen, PSL decreases quickly as the space distance increases. As
distance increases to about 8.03 m, PSL decreases to 0 dB. This means that at the space distance of 8.03 m, the maximum side-lobe is equal to the value of correlation peak. So the peak
cannot be distinguished from the side-lobes. In experiments, we obtain the measurable range
is 8.03 m for a free-space target. The limitation factor of the maximum distance is the average
power of the chaotic detecting signal. If we increase the power of chaotic detecting signal, the
dynamic range could be improved.

4. Discussion
Fig. 9. demonstrates the transmission characteristics of the signal power spectra at different
points in the system. Point A, point B, point C, and point D are marked in Fig. 1(b) by four dots.
The gray curve is the noise floor of the signal analyzer. The red line corresponds to the chaotic
UWB signal of point A. The chaotic waveform is generated by photonic chaotic generator and
this is the reference signal. As can been seen, the signal has a very wide, flat and smooth
power spectra. The black curve is the power spectra of point B, in which the chaotic detecting
signal is obtained after amplified by LNA1. The power spectra of point C are shown by the blue
curve. The power spectra curves are corresponding to the receiving signal amplified by LNA2.
As we all known, the electromagnetic wave will be attenuated after the space transmission,
moreover, the higher the frequency, the greater the loss. Therefore, the energy of the antenna

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Fig. 9. The power spectra characteristics of different points in the system. Point A, point B, point C,
and point D are marked in Fig. 1 by four dots.

received signal decreases as the signal frequency increases. In addition, due to the space electromagnetism interference, not only the detecting signal which carries the target location information, but also the electromagnetic interference such as the cell phone signal are received by
RA. The power spectra at point D are illustrated by the green curve. The final detecting signal is
sampled and stored by OSC. Limited by the 10 GHz modulation bandwidth of LD, the chaotic
UWB signal bandwidth at point D is much narrower than it at point B. The target detecting is accomplished through the cross correlation between the detecting signal and the reference signal.
As can be seen, although the detecting signal is so distorted, the proposed system has a good
range performance according to the ranging results shown in Figs. 3 and 4. The spectra bandwidth of the reference signal (point A) and the detecting signal (point D) are different due to the
limitation of the 10 GHz modulation bandwidth of LD, that means the waveform of detecting signal suffer the distortion. Although its waveform widen and attenuate, the characteristics of chaotic signal mostly reserves, and then the cross correlation curve between the waveform time
series of the reference signal and the detecting signal still has good quality to identify the distance. That owes to the chaotic signal has the excellent autocorrelation characteristic and antijamming ability.
In the system of the microwave-photonic chaotic UWB radar system for remote ranging, the
chaotic signal with a bandwidth of 18 GHz is generated by photonic chaotic generator, but the
bandwidth of the real-time oscilloscope used in the experiment is only 6 GHz, this means that
the signal is low pass filtered by the front end of the oscilloscope. So a limited ranging resolution
of 0.6 cm for the system is achieved. However, due to the effect of interfering signals in space
and the dispersion effect, we can only attain a spatial range resolution of 3 cm. Better range resolution can be achieved by using a high bandwidth oscilloscope and a high-speed modulator for
LD. The FWHM of the autocorrelation trace is 5.3 cm with a 1 GHz acquisition bandwidth, so a
limit range resolution of 5.3 cm is achieved. We also get the special range resolution of 1.2 cm,
0.9 cm and 0.6 cm when the acquisition bandwidth of the system increases to 3 GHz, 4 GHz
and 6 GHz, respectively. The results are shown in Fig. 10. As can be seen, the wider the bandwidth of the chaotic signal is, the narrower the FWHM of autocorrelation function becomes, and
the higher the spatial resolution can be reached.
As mentioned in [3], for short-range high-speed wireless communication, the UWB signals
are generally in impulse-radio (IR) form or multiband (MB) form generated in electronic domain.
By wireless transmission, UWB signals can only transmit over a short distance from a few
meters to tens of meters. For enlarging the coverage area and supporting the availability of
undisrupted service across different networks, the convergence of UWB signals and optical

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Fig. 10. The relationship between FWHM and bandwidth.

fiber distribution techniques, the so-called UWB-over-fiber, has been proposed. In order to distribute UWB signals over the optical fiber, it is highly desirable that the UWB signals can be
generated directly in the optical domain. So, in this paper, in order to construct the antenna
remote control ranging radar system, we used the microwave-photonic approach to generate
the UWB signal, and then we can realize the microwave-photonic remote radar based on chaos
generation in optical domain and UWB-over-fiber. This system can not be achieved only by
using the method in [3].
Compared with [17], in our paper, not only the chaotic light generation is different that the
bandwidth enhancement by the optical feedback, but also, more important, we utilize the fiberoptic distribution technology to realize the remoting control of radar antenna. In other words, this
microwave-photonic chaotic UWB radar system combines the chaotic radar using nonlinear
laser dynamics as in [17] with the UWB-over-fiber technology, not only gains a high ranging
resolution, but also implements the antenna remote control.
In [29], a microwave-photonic UWB noise radar system is proposed and demonstrated. The
UWB noise waveform is generated using the amplified spontaneous emission that is associated
with either stimulated Brillouin scattering in a standard optical fiber, or with erbium-doped fiber
amplification. Waveforms of more than 1-GHz bandwidth and arbitrary radio-frequency carriers
are generated, and distributed over 10-km fiber to a remote antenna unit. The authors demonstrated ranging measurements with 10-cm and 20-cm resolution after 10-km fiber transmission.
In [32], Zheng et al. proposed and demonstrated a novel fiber-distributed chaotic UWB noise
radar, which consists of a chaotic UWB noise source based on optoelectronic oscillator, a fiberdistributed transmission link, a colorless base station, and a cross-correlation processing
module. Especially, the power spectrum of chaotic UWB signal could be shaped and notchfiltered to avoid the spectrum-overlay-induced interference to the narrow band signals. Meanwhile, the wavelength-reusing could be implemented by means of the distributed polarization
modulation-to-intensity modulation conversion. By this excellent method, the space resolution of
the proposed radar is up to cm-level as the probing signal is delivered over a length of 3-km
SMF. Compared with these works, we obtain the higher spatial resolution and longer fiber distribution in remote ranging, which thanks to the bandwidth enhancement chaotic signal generation
by an optical injection laser diode with optical feedback. And we also construct a microwavephotonic chaotic UWB array radar system, which contains more than one remote antenna unit.
By using two 1 : N optical switch, the probing signal and its corresponding echoed signal can
be distributed to different fiber link branch to construct multi-remoting-antenna units. That means
we could only use a set of transmitter and receiver in central office to realize different target
remote ranging in different areas.

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5. Conclusion
A microwave-photonic remote radar based on chaos generation and radio over fiber is demonstrated. Compared with conventional radars, the proposed radar not only realizes the remote
control of the radar, but also has a high range resolution. In this paper, the characteristics of the
detecting signal, the performance of single-target ranging and double-targets ranging, the dynamic range and the spatial range resolution of the remote radar system are studied experimentally. And we also discuss the strong anti-jamming ability of the system. Using the chaotic signal
generated by an optically injected semiconductor laser with optical feedback as the detecting
signal of the radar, it is the noise characteristic and wide bandwidth of the chaotic signal that
makes the autocorrelation properties good. By using two 1 : 2 optical switch, the probing signal
and its corresponding echoed signal are distributed to different fiber link branch to construct
multi-remoting-antenna units. In the fiber link branch 1, the range resolution of 3 cm for singletarget ranging and 8 cm for double-targets ranging are achieved for distance up to 8 m through
the remote control with two 24 km single mode fibers experimentally. In the fiber link branch 2
with 15 km fiber transmission, a 2 cm spatial resolution for single target detecting is obtained.
This remote radar system can be used for military radar, hilltops under bad conditions, the
radar systems of islands, dangerous areas, and harsh industrial environments.

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