MIMO-employed coherent photonic-radar (MIMO-Co-PHRAD) for detection and ranging

Recently, the photonics-radar technology comes out as an attractive candidate in the arena of smart autonomous transportation, surveillance, and navigation-related applications owing to provide wide-spectra to attain improved and precise radar-resolutions. On the other hand, microwave radars, due to limited bandwidth, are incapable of coping with the demands of next-generation radar technology. Moreover, the atmospheric fluctuations become more prominent at higher frequencies and affect the radar’s performance significantly. Subsequently, the authors develop a 2 × 2 multi-input multi-output (MIMO) employed linear frequency-modulated continuous-wave coherent photonic-radar system (MIMO-Co-PHRAD) using OptiSystem™ and MATLAB™ to attain a prolonged detection-range with an enhanced visibility. The developed MIMO-Co-PHRAD is investigated with heterodyne- and homodyne-detection approaches under weak-to-strong regimes of the atmospheric fluctuations like Rain and Fog. A comparison is also drawn for both the demonstrated MIMO-equipped laser-driven coherent photonic-radar systems. The performance of both the developed MIMO-Co-PHRAD systems is evaluated by measuring the intensity of reflected-echoes, signal-to-noise ratio, and range-Doppler patterns. A contrast with the single-input single-output coherent photonic-radar (SISO-Co-PHRAD) is also established to validate the robustness of the demonstrated MIMO-Co-PHRAD.