W-Band Photonic Receiver for Compact Cloud Radars

We introduce an RF-photonics receiver concept enabling the next generation of ultra-compact millimeter wave radars suitable for cloud and precipitation profiling, planetary boundary layer observations, altimetry and surface scattering measurements. The RF-photonics receiver architecture offers some compelling advantages over traditional electronic implementations, including a reduced number of components and interfaces, leading to reduced size, weight and power (SWaP), as well as lower system noise, leading to improved sensitivity. Low instrument SWaP with increased sensitivity makes this approach particularly attractive for compact space-borne radars. We study the photonic receiver front-end both analytically and numerically and predict the feasibility of the greater than unity photonic gain and lower than ambient effective noise temperature of the device. The receiver design is optimized for W-band (94 GHz) radars, which are generally assessed to be the primary means for observing clouds in the free troposphere as well as planetary boundary layer from space.