The characterization of complex materials and moving objects in arbitrary environments is a key challenge for sensor technology (e.g. for 3D material maps). For such complex tasks, novel sensors need to be developed that can adaptively adjust waveform, frequency bandwidth, carrier frequency and observation sector to the measurement environment and material properties.

Sub-/millimeter-wave sensors appear to be particularly suitable for this purpose, but cannot be easily applied at present. The photonikSensor project is intended to remedy this situation. The aim is to develop a coherent photonic sensor that is sensitive and tunable over a wide frequency range. The frequency-tunable measurement signal is to be generated by a photodiode with a coupled transmitting antenna. For analysis, the transmitted or reflected measurement signal shall be brought to a low intermediate frequency by heterodyne coherent mixing. For this purpose, sub-/millimeter-wave photodiodes with electronic mixer diodes are integrated for the first time in photonikSensor and activated by a tunable two-wavelength laser also developed in photonikSensor.