An adaptive microwave photonic angle-of-arrival (AOA) estimation approach based on a convolutional neural network with a bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU-CNN) is proposed and demonstrated. Compared with the previously reported AOA estimation methods based on phase-to-power mapping, the proposed method is unnecessary to know the frequency of the signal under test (SUT) in advance. The envelope voltage correlation matrix is obtained from dual-drive Mach–Zehnder modulator (N-DDMZM, N > 2) optical interferometer arrays first, and then AOA estimations are performed on different frequency signals with the aid of BiGRU-CNN. A three-DDMZM-based experiment is carried out to assess the estimation performance of microwave signals at three different frequencies, and the mean absolute error is only 0.1545°.

A water track laser Doppler velocimeter (LDV) is developed with advantages of high update rate, high real-time performance, high concealment, light weight, and small dimensions. The water track LDV measures the advance velocity of the underwater vehicle with respect to the surrounding water. The experimental results show that the water track LDV has an accuracy of 96.4% when the moving velocity of the vehicle with respect to the ground exceeds 0.25 m/s. Thus, the water track LDV is promising in the application of underwater navigation to aid the strapdown inertial navigation system.

Bioaerosols exhibit significant broadband extinction performance and have vital impacts on climate change, optical detection, communication, disease transmission, and the development of optical attenuation materials. Microbial spores and microbial hyphae represent two primary forms of bioaerosol particles. However, a comprehensive investigation and comparison of their optical properties have not been conducted yet. In this paper, the spectra of spores and hyphae were tested, and the absorption peaks, component contents, and protein structural differences were compared. Accurate structural models were established, and the optical attenuation parameters were calculated. Aerosol chamber experiments were conducted to verify the optical attenuation performance of microbial spores and hyphae in the mid-infrared and far-infrared spectral bands. Results demonstrate that selecting spores and hyphae can significantly reduce the average transmittance from 21.2% to 6.4% in the mid-infrared band and from 31.3% to 19.6% in the far-infrared band within three minutes. The conclusions have significant implications for the selection of high-performance microbial optical attenuation materials as well as for the rapid detection of bioaerosol types in research on climate change and the spread of pathogenic aerosols.

In the aerospace field, for aerospace engines and other high-end manufacturing equipment working in extreme environments, like ultrahigh temperatures, high pressure, and high-speed airflow, in situ temperature measurement is of great importance for improving the structure design and achieving the health monitoring and the fault diagnosis of critical parts. Optical fiber sensors have the advantages of small size, easy design, corrosion resistance, anti-electromagnetic interference, and the ability to achieve distributed or quasi-distributed sensing and have broad application prospects for temperature sensing in extreme environments. In this review, first, we introduce the current research status of fiber Bragg grating-type and Fabry–Perot interferometer-type high-temperature sensors. Then we review the optical fiber high-temperature sensor encapsulation techniques, including tubular encapsulation, substrate encapsulation, and metal-embedded encapsulation, and discuss the extreme environmental adaptability of different encapsulation structures. Finally, the critical technological issues that need to be solved for the application of optical fiber sensors in extreme environments are discussed.

The Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor (SHWFS) is commonly used for its high speed and precision in adaptive optics. However, its performance is limited in low light conditions, particularly when observing faint objects in astronomical applications. Instead of a pixelated detector, we present a new approach for wavefront sensing using a single-pixel detector, which is able to code the spatial position of a light spot array into the polarization dimension and decode the polarization state in the polar coordinate. We propose validation experiments with simple and complex wavefront distortions to demonstrate our approach as a promising alternative to traditional SHWFS systems, with potential applications in a wide range of fields.