Multi-band microwave photonic satellite repeater scheme employing intensity Mach-Zehnder modulators

To solve the satellite repeater's flexible and wideband frequency conversion problem, we propose a novel microwave photonic repeater system, which can convert the upload signal's carrier to six different frequencies. The scheme employs one 20 GHz bandwidth dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) and two 10 GHz bandwidth MZMs. The basic principle of this scheme is filtering out two optical sidebands after the optical carrier suppression (OCS) modulation and combining two sidebands modulated by the input radio frequency (RF) signal. This structure can realize simultaneous multi-band frequency conversion with only one frequency-fixed microwave source and prevent generating harmful interference sidebands by using two corresponding optical filters after optical modulation. In the simulation, one C-band signal of 6 GHz carrier can be successfully converted to 12 GHz (Ku-band), 28 GHz, 34 GHz, 40 GHz, 46 GHz (Ka-band) and 52 GHz (V-band), which can be an attractive method to realize multi-band microwave photonic satellite repeater. Alternatively, the scheme can be configured to generate multi-band local oscillators (LOs) for widely satellite onboard clock distribution when the input RF signal is replaced by the internal clock source.