UC San Diego

Agile wideband radio frequency receivers capable of not only detecting a signal with high accuracy, but also processing and classifying the data simultaneously is the Holy Grail for receivers spanning applications in defense, communication, nature, and biology. Conventional radio frequency receivers perform poorly over wide bandwidths

and rely on complex electrical processing, limiting the performance and requiring a large dissipation to operate. In this dissertation, a new processing and detection engine is introduced to address both the need for detecting wideband signals and processing them simultaneously. The cornerstone of the engine is the use of two optical frequency combs. The low noise tunable frequency combs allow for an unprecedented engine with agile tuning and computation free processing.

The capabilities of the developed engine are demonstrated across a wide range of applications. Specifically, a subnoise communication link with the potential to solve the current radio frequency spectral drought is introduced with the core enabler being the developed engine. Next, a transient signal detector is proposed with the potential to revolutionize a variety of different fields that require accurate detection of single events. Finally, a signal classification scheme capable of taking a large spectral bandwidth and simultaneously processing the data for signal intelligence is introduced. The core engine for each of these applications is also shown to be packaged into a standard telecommunications box, paving the way for a revolutionary device that is readily implementable across a variety of fields.