A demodulator can include an optical resonator. The optical resonator can include a resonant cavity that extends between a first surface that is partially reflective and a second surface that is at least partially reflective. The first surface can receive a phase-modulated optical signal that has a time-varying phase. The resonant cavity can accumulate resonant optical signal energy based at least in part on the phase-modulated optical signal. The first surface can direct a fraction of the resonant optical signal energy out of the optical resonator to form an intensity-modulated optical signal that has a time-varying intensity. A data detector can receive at least a portion of the intensity-modulated optical signal and, in response, generate an intensity-modulated electrical signal that has a time-varying intensity that corresponds to the time-varying phase of the phase-modulated optical signal.

The present invention provides an optical transmitter 100 for transmitting a data signal 101. The optical transmitter 100 comprises an encoder 102 configured to encode the data signal 101 by selecting based on a bit sequence 101, 401 a first symbol and a second symbol from a set 200 of four symbols 201-204 for each one of at least two transmission time slots. The optical transmitter 100 further comprises a modulator 103 configured to use in each transmission time slot the first symbol to modulate a first carrier wave and the second symbol to modulate a second carrier wave, and to transmit the two carrier waves over orthogonal polarizations of an optical carrier 104. Symbols 201-204 in consecutive transmission time slots have non-identical polarization states.

A spatial optical transmitter modulates an optical signal of a single wavelength in accordance with a signal to be transmitted, divides the modulated optical signal into two, rotates polarizations of the two divided optical signals, and transmits the two optical signals as optical signals of two orthogonal polarizations to space.

An optical transmitter (and methods of transmitting and receiving) includes a delay and modulation circuit (or communications circuit) configured to receive at least one optical beam and a data signal and generate at least two or more modulated optical beams having the data encoded therein. One of the modulated optical beams is a time-delayed or time-shifted version of another one of the modulated optical beams, and both beams are directed toward a target.

An optical beamforming device includes an RF front-end transmitting or receiving RF signals and an optical beamformer forming or compensating for a time delay for each of the plurality of channels based on the RF signals. The optical beamformer includes E/O converters converting the RF signals into optical signals, respectively, a linear modulator generating an optical modulation signal based on an RF input signal, a TTD array outputting an optical combined signal obtained by compensating for a time delay degree of the input optical signals or outputting output optical signals, in each of which a time delay is formed for each channel, by distributing the optical modulation signal, a photo detector generating an RF output signal to an RF back-end based on the optical combined signal, and O/E converters converting the output optical signals into RF signals, respectively.

A multi-user system to simultaneously perform operations such as communication, RADAR, Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) and Relative Navigation (RELNAV). The techniques according to an embodiment includes generating a Fourier based orthogonal chirp sequence of length P, a prime number greater than the number of users targeted for communication. The orthogonal chirp sequence is based on an identifier, in the range of one to P−1, associated with one of the targeted users. The method further includes using the orthogonal chirp sequence to generate a spread user signal based on a message directed to the one targeted users. The method further includes generating a sequence of training pulses for insertion into the spread user signal to facilitate reception of the signal. The method further includes transmitting and receiving a reflection of the spread user signal from one of the targeted users, the reflection used to detect and range the user.

A ternary phase shift keying transmitter and receiver can efficiently communicate using ternary encoded data that avoids indistinguishable transition curves for each of the three modulated states in the ternary encoded data. The transmitter is interoperable and can function with different types of receivers including direct detection-based receivers and coherent detection-based receivers.

An optical modulation method and device capable of stably generating an optical signal including a zero-intensity state among four states required for phase-time coding scheme by a nested modulator, is provided.

A controller controls the phase difference generated by the phase shifter and an intensity and a magnitude of phase modulation provided by each of the first modulator and the second modulator to change an output lightwave of the nested modulator between four constellation points (S1-S4) on IQ plane. A first constellation point (S4) of the four constellation points has an intensity of 0, a second constellation point (S1) has a relative intensity of 1, each of a third constellation point (S2) and a fourth constellation point (S3) has a relative intensity ranging from 0 to 1, and the third and the fourth constellation points has a phase difference of 90 degrees.

Disclosed are optical communications systems and optical receivers including one or more optical cavity resonators. In particular, disclosed are methods and apparatus that allow for beam pointing to be maintained while permitting the receiver to tune the optical resonator to suit the wavelength, data rate and modulation format of the incoming optical signal, without requiring a coherent receiver or adaptive optics in addition to optical resonators.

Amplitude-modulated (AM) signals spanning a spatial wide area can be efficiently detected using a slowly scanning optical system. The system decouples the AM carrier from the AM signal bandwidth (or carrier uncertainty), enabling Nyquist sampling of only the information-bearing AM signal (or the known frequency bandwidth). The system includes a staring sensor with N pixels (e.g., N>10.sup.6) that searches for a sinusoidal frequency of unknown phase and frequency, perhaps constrained to a particular band by a priori information about the signal. Counters in the sensor pixels mix the detected signals with local oscillators to down-convert the signal of interest, e.g., to a baseband frequency. The counters store the down-converted signal for read out at a rate lower than the Nyquist rate of AM signal. The counts can be shifted among pixels synchronously with the optical line-of-sight for scanning operation.