US Patent 8442402 Wide band digital receiver: system and method

A wide band digital RF receiver includes an RF front end configured to convert a RF signal into an IF signal. A wide band digital receiver also includes a photonic Analog-to-Digital Converter (pADC), and a digital processor. The pADC includes a photonic sampler that phase-encodes a stream of optical pulses with the IF signal to obtain phase-encoded optical pulses, and that amplitude-encodes an identical stream of optical pulses with the IF signal to obtain amplitude-encoded optical pulses. The pADC also includes a photonic processor and an electronic quantizer. The photonic processor processes the phase-encoded optical pulses by way of an I channel and a Q channel, and processes the amplitude-encoded optical pulses by way of an amplitude channel.