Photonic signal processing is a suitable alternative of electronics based processing for wideband frequency detection. The simulation design discussed here is for the detection of a wide range of frequencies based on photonic signal processing.
The unknown frequency to be measured is used to modulate a tunable optical source by implementing single sideband suppressed carrier modulation. The modulated signal is combined with two fixed frequency optical carriers to perform heterodyne detection. The frequency of the tunable laser source is swept until significant power of the beat signal is observed after photodetection. A mathematical expression is presented that can be used to measure the frequency of the unknown electrical signal based on value of the center frequency of tunable laser source. The effect of increasing laser linewidth up to 100 MHz and instantaneous shift in laser center frequency up to 200 MHz has also been demonstrated. It can be seen that the technique can measure almost any radio frequency by simply varying the frequency of the tunable laser source..
The simulation implements the technique presented in the following journal paper:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/mop.32734.