Abstract:Microwave frequency measurement and analysis plays a significant role in civil and defense applications. Recently, big challenges emerge as the operating frequency used or to be used in the communication, radar, and electronic warfare increases rapidly. Fortunately, with the development of microwave photonics, a series of photonic approaches and solutions are proposed for measuring the frequency of microwave signals. Thank to the advantages including large instantaneous bandwidth and strong immunity to electromagnetic interference, these photonic approaches can be regarded as emerging solutions both for theoretical research and field applications. Several classic photonics assisted approaches for microwavefrequency measurement, such as those based on photonic scanning, frequency to amplitude mapping, frequency to space mapping, frequency to time mapping, photonic compressive sensing, digitalized microwave frequency measurement, and so on, are introduced with theory and experimental results. Meanwhile, recen advances and applications in photonic microwave frequency measurement are reviewed and summarized. In addition, the corresponding prospects are also briefly discussed.