A PM-based approach for Doppler frequency shift measurement and direction discrimination

A novel photonic approach for wideband Doppler frequency Shift (DFS) measurement and direction discrimination based on phase modulators (PMs) and optical frequency shift module is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. In the proposed scheme, a light emitted from the laser is split into two paths, one of which is modulated by the transmitted signal through the first PM and the other of which passes through the carrier frequency shifter and then is modulated by the echo signal through the second PM. After combining two optical signals and filtering out the negative sidebands, the value and direction of DFS can be obtained by comparing two peak frequencies in the low-frequency electrical signals generated by a low-speed photodetector. Proof-of-concept experiments with DFSs from -1 MHz to 1 MHz at an optical carrier frequency shift of 40 MHz are implemented, where the measurement errors are kept within ±0.7 Hz.