Experimental Dual-band Coherent Photonics-based Radar Network with ISAR Imaging

In this paper, an operative radar network based on microwave photonics techniques is presented. The proposed system employs a centralized architecture, with a central unit driving multiple remote radar peripherals. The wide distribution of the peripherals, the possibility to operate in dual-band mode and the coherent management of the transmitted and received signals are discussed. The surveillance system is deployed in a real freight port, exploiting the available optical fiber network, for the monitoring of the maritime traffic. Preliminary results demonstrate the possibility of exploiting geometric and frequency diversity on the target detection. Finally, the first experimental multi-sensor, multi-band inverse synthetic aperture radar target imaging results are presented.