Patent ID: 7245833

Claim:
A photonic channelized receiver, comprising: an optical source, of the receiver, that produces a plurality of optical signals at respective, spaced wavelengths; an optical combiner, of the receiver, configured to combine the plurality of optical signals into a common beam; an electro-optical modulator, of the receiver, that modulates the common beam with an RF signal to produce sidebands offset from frequencies of the plurality of optical signals by the frequency of the RF signal; an etalon having a periodic transfer function that filters the modulated common beam such that the optical signals in the filtered, modulated common beam function as receiver channels corresponding to respective different RF frequencies, wherein the plurality of optical signals corresponds to a plurality of respective frequency channels and the etalon has a plurality of etalon transmission peaks corresponding to the respective frequency channels, such that a frequency offset between a frequency channel's etalon transmission peak and optical signal varies among the frequency channels; a wavelength splitter configured to separate the filtered, modulated common beam into a plurality of channel output signals whose intensities are a function of the frequency of the RF signal; and a plurality of detectors that respectively measure the intensities of the channel output signals to indicate the frequency of the RF signal.