Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The central goal of this research program is to develop and evaluate innovative concepts, designs and technologies of critical importance for the practical realization of the cognitive design paradigm across a wide range of applications, particularly, for 5G-oriented wireless and optical telecommunications, as well as for next-generation radar, lidar and sensing platforms. Our focus is on the development of fundamental broadband electromagnetic waveform analysis and processing functionalities, offering the needed performance specifications, in terms of bandwidth provisioning, agility, reconfigurability, scalability, energy and cost efficiency, beyond the potential of present digital signal processing (DSP) or analog processing technologies. Our vision involves a new dynamic' optical signal processing (OSP) framework that will provide a level of complexity and reconfigurability similar to that of the DSP approach but offering orders-of-magnitude improvements in real-time bandwidth provisioning, as enabled by the photonics approach. In the short-term, this will be accomplished through the development of a novel OSP platform for analog joint time-frequency (e.g., spectrogram) analysis and processing of broadband waveforms, towards realization of a comprehensive set of fundamental dynamic signal manipulation capabilities at unprecedented real-time processing speeds, as per the requirements in the target applications. We will aim at implementation of the designed signal processing units, involving radio-frequency (RF) and photonic technologies, in compact, fully integrated formats, a crucial realization for their successful deployment in real-world settings. Funding is requested towards the purchase of a state-of-the-art dual-channel high-speed Arbitrary Waveform Generator (AWG). The proposed instrument offers the capability to generate user-defined, truly arbitrary RF waveforms at a remarkable sampling rate (up to 100GSamples/s), with an analog output bandwidth up to 44 GHz, and an extremely high overall quality. This is an essential instrument for generation of the test waveforms to be found in the target applications, from broadband telecom data signals with symbol rates up to 100GBaud under the most advanced complex modulation formats, to the ultrahigh-speed sophisticated analog waveforms in cognitive radar, lidar and sensing networks. Moreover, the proposed AWG is also a fundamental instrument for implementation of the proposed dynamic waveform processing schemes. These activities will open new avenues in RF and photonics research, with solid commercialization opportunities. The new knowledge generated from the project and the training of highly qualified personnel associated with the different stages of this work will enhance Canada's global competitiveness, especially in optics and photonics, microwave and mm-wave engineering, next-generation information and communication platforms, and the related high-technology sectors