The invention discloses a 
microwave photonic down-conversion apparatus and method based on a bidirectional 
cyclic frequency shift, and relates to the field of 
microwave photonics. The 
microwave photonic down-conversion apparatus and method aim to solve the defects of small bandwidth, large loss and the like confronted by a traditional 
electrical frequency converter and the defect that high-frequency electrical local oscillation is needed by an optical 
frequency conversion technology. The apparatus provided by the invention consists of a 
laser, a 
cyclic frequency shift module and a photoelectric 
detector; and the 
cyclic frequency shift module includes a 2*2 
optical coupler, a 
polarization controller, a dual-drive electro-
optical intensity modulator, an electrical local oscillation source, an 
optical amplifier, an optical 
band pass filter and an optical adjustable 
delay line. In the cyclic 
frequency shift module, first-order optical sidebands of a to-be-converted radio-frequency 
signal and an electrical local oscillation 
signal on an optical carrier simultaneously perform opposite optical 
sideband movement step by step at a same 
frequency shift, and at last photoelectric detection isperformed on two opposite 
frequency shift optical sidebands having nearest frequencies to implement down-conversion of the radio-frequency 
signal; and with the characteristic of opposite frequency shift of the cyclic frequency shift module, by changing a frequency of the electrical local oscillation source, the wide frequency range under low-frequency electrical local oscillation and the down-conversion of a tunable microwave signal are implemented.