Low-complexity equalizer with a hybrid decision scheme for 50 Gb/s/λ PAM4-PON using a low-cost 10 G receiver.

In this Letter, we experimentally demonstrate a 50Gb/s/λ four-level pulse amplitude modulation-based passive optical network system with a 10 G class receiver. A memory polynomial equalizer (MPE) combined with a decision feedback equalizer (DFE) is applied to eliminate channel distortions in the system. To further improve the performance of the MPE-DFE, for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, a low-complexity hybrid decision scheme (HDS) is proposed, which consists of single-symbol decision (SSD) and multi-symbol decision (MSD). The SSD is exactly the conventional hard decision based on minimum Euclidean distance, whereas MSD is based on a simplified maximum likelihood detection principle with M-algorithm. In terms of complexity, MSD requires 19.1% more multiplications than SSD, but the symbol number of MSD only accounts for less than 20% of the total signal frame when the received optical power is greater than -27dBm. Experimental results show that the proposed MPE-DFE with HDS achieves a 0.7 dB and 1.3 dB sensitivity gain compared with conventional SSD, and up to 35.4 dB and 31.4 dB link power budget, regarding the forward error correction threshold of 10-2 and 10-3, respectively.

User-specific power level allocation optimization for OFDM-NOMA in a multi-user RoF system.

In this Letter, we propose a digital signal processing (DSP) -aided technique to optimize the power ratio among users for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) -based non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) in an integrated optical fiber and millimeter wave (mmWave) wireless communication system. In this way, a central or distributed unit can leverage the proposed techniques to maintain the uniformity of the signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) among subcarriers without requiring any channel information feedback. The proposed mechanism can facilitate the power allocation management by treating all subcarriers equally as an independent channel. As an illustration, multiple NOMA scenarios, in which a near user with 10 km fiber transmission and far user with either longer fiber distance or additional wireless propagation, are experimentally investigated. Experimental results demonstrate that when the conventional OFDM-NOMA without the proposed DSP-aided technique is used, the optimal power ratios vary rapidly when the subcarrier quality index changes due to high-frequency fading in a mmWave radio over fiber (RoF) system, whereas, by using the proposed techniques, including both orthogonal circulant matrix transform and discrete Fourier transform, the optimal power ratios on all effective subcarriers are optimized at the same level and the users' performance is significantly improved.

Impact of laser flicker noise and linewidth on 64 to 96 Gbaud/DP-nQAM metro coherent optical links.

We experimentally investigate the impact of laser flicker noise and linewidth on 64 Gbaud/DP-64QAM, 96 Gbaud/DP-32QAM and 64 or 96 Gbaud/DP-16QAM links. To give a more practical viewpoint, the examined flicker noise closely follows that of an industry forum (OIF 400ZR). We have found that higher modulation order (e.g., 64QAM) is sensitive to phase noise from the linewidth and flicker noise, even in the back to back case. Significant optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) and cycle slip rate penalties can also be observed with a transmission distance $ {\gt} {200}\;{\rm km}$>200km for both 64QAM and 32QAM signals, which mainly comes from equalization-enhanced phase noise. Moreover, with the increasing of transmission distances, the effective linewidth of a tunable laser with a higher flicker noise and higher linewidth (210 KHz) increases significantly, while it remains unchanged for an external cavity laser (ECL) with 47-kHz linewidth. The result indicates the importance of more stringent flicker noise and linewidth requirement for future ultrabaud rate transmissions.

Proactive real-time interference avoidance in a 5G millimeter-wave over fiber mobile fronthaul using SARSA reinforcement learning.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a proactive real-time interference avoidance scheme using SARSA reinforcement learning (RL) in a millimeter-wave over a fiber mobile fronthaul system. The RL consists of three core factors, including state, action, and reward. The state is defined as a discretized value from the center frequency, the left, right, and center sub-EVM of the signal. We use five actions to shift the signal frequency in the proposed scheme, which is -20, -10, 0, 10, and 20 MHz, for the RL agent to choose the action to avoid the dynamic interference. For the agent to learn from the experience, the reward is defined as the log value of BER difference between the past and the present state. The RL-based approach is an online learning algorithm, which can learn in real time based on environmental feedback. Besides, the agent can learn from past experience owing to the Q-value table, which makes it act intelligently when facing a similar situation again. We verify the capability of the proposed scheme under both fixed and dynamic interference scenarios. The agent demonstrates an efficient intelligent mechanism to avoid the interference, which provides a promising solution for proactive interference mitigation in the 5 G mobile fronthaul network.

Non-iterative blind linearization algorithm for DML-based multi-IF-over-fiber mobile fronthaul systems.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel digital post-linearization algorithm for the mobile fronthaul system employing bandwidth-efficient multiple intermediate frequency-over-fiber technology and a low-cost directly-modulated laser (DML). The proposed linearization algorithm is distinguished for blind adaption, the absence of training signal, or prior knowledge of the transmission channel. Particularly, it provides a closed-form solution for the estimation of optimal linearizer coefficients, leading to a non-iterative mode without convergence restrictions. In our experiments, one and nine 200 MHz 64-QAM OFDM IF signals (or channels) are transmitted over a 10 km single-mode fiber link using a DML. In both cases (one and nine IF channels), the linearization performance of the proposed algorithm is experimentally validated in terms of the reduction (>8 dB) of the adjacent channel leakage ratio, decrease (>10 dB) of error vector magnitude (EVM), and an increase (>9 dB) of EVM-compliant input RF power range.

Increasing data rate of an optical IMDD system using a cost-efficient dual-band transmission scheme based on RTZ DAC and sub-Nyquist sampling ADC.

A cost-efficient dual-band transmission scheme based on return-to-zero (RTZ)-mode digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and sub-Nyquist sampling analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is proposed in this paper. The scheme can increase the data rate and meanwhile halve the required sampling rate of the DAC/ADC in optical intensity modulation direct detection (IMDD) transmission system. Based on this scheme, we experimentally demonstrate a dual-band discrete Fourier transformation spread (DFT-S) OFDM intensity modulation direct detection (IMDD) system. Although the sampling rate of the DAC and ADC used in the receiver is only 5-GSa/s and there is no mixer and oscillator at the transmitter and receiver side, 22-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) transmission with up to 26.33-Gb/s data rate is successfully realized. The experimental results show that in the system, the first sub-band transmission based on 128-QAM mapping can achieve a bit error rate (BER) below 3.8 × 10-3. The second sub-band transmission based on 32-QAM mapping can achieve a BER below 2.4 × 10-2. The spectral efficiency (SE) of the first sub-band signal is up to 6.14 bit/s/Hz and the SE of the second sub-band signal is up to 4.39 bit/s/Hz.

Bit-based support vector machine nonlinear detector for millimeter-wave radio-over-fiber mobile fronthaul systems.

An effective bit-based support vector machine (SVM) is proposed as a non-parameter nonlinear mitigation approach in the millimeter-wave radio-over-fiber (RoF) mobile fronthaul (MFH) system for various modulation formats. First, we analyze the impairments originated from nonlinearities in the millimeter-wave RoF system. Then we introduce the operation principle of the bit-based SVM detector. As a classifier, the SVM can create nonlinear decision boundaries by kernel function to mitigate the distortions caused by both linear and nonlinear noise. In our design, SVM can learn and capture the link characteristics from only a few training data without requiring the prior estimation of the system link. The bit-based SVM only needs log2M SVMs to detect the signal of M-order modulation format. Experimental results have been obtained to verify the feasibility of the proposed method. The sensitivities are improved by 1.2-dB for 16-QAM, 1.3-dB for 64-QAM, 1.8-dB for 16-APSK and 1.3-dB for 32-APSK at BER = 1E-3 with SVM detector, respectively. The proposed bit-based SVM gains a large improvement in the nonlinear system tolerance and outperforms the system employing k-means algorithm.

Simple and reconfigured single-sideband OFDM RoF system.

We propose a simple and reconfigured dispersion-tolerant single sideband (SSB) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) radio over fiber (RoF) system enabled by digital signal processing (DSP), one in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) modulator and direct-detection. The generated radio frequency (RF) is based on DSP and the frequency can be flexibly adjusted, which can be employed in the future software-defined radio access network (RAN). Based on our proposed system, we have experimentally demonstrated 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) 21.87-Gb/s 21-GHz and 38-GHz SSB-OFDM RoF signal generation and transmission over 80-km single-mode fiber (SMF), respectively.

Two-level modulation scheme to reduce latency for optical mobile fronthaul networks.

A system using optical two-level orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing (OFDM) - amplitude-shift-keying (ASK) modulation is proposed and demonstrated to reduce the processing latency for the optical mobile fronthaul networks. At the proposed remote-radio-head (RRH), the high data rate OFDM signal does not need to be processed, but is directly launched into a high speed photodiode (HSPD) and subsequently emitted by an antenna. Only a low bandwidth PD is needed to recover the low data rate ASK control signal. Hence, it is simple and provides low-latency. Furthermore, transporting the proposed system over the already deployed optical-distribution-networks (ODNs) of passive-optical-networks (PONs) is also demonstrated with 256 ODN split-ratios.

Photonic RF vector signal generation with enhanced spectral efficiency using precoded double single-sideband modulation.

In this study, a novel photonic vector signal at frequency (RF) bands generation scheme based on the beating of double single sidebands (SSBs) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The double SSBs carry separate constant- or multi-amplitude quadrature-amplitude-modulation vector signals are generated from a single I/Q modulator. By adopting phase and amplitude precoding, different constellations can be generated, such as 3-ary phase-shift keying (PSK), 4-PSK, 7-PSK, 8-PSK, and so on. In this work, 10-Gbaud 7-PSK vector signal generation at 20 GHz enabled by two precoded 4-PSK SSB signals via a single I/Q modulator is theoretically and experimentally investigated. Compared to a single-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator or conventional I/Q modulator-based photonic vector signal generation scheme, the spectrum efficiency can be doubled. Differential coding is also implemented at the transmitter side for accurate demodulation of 7-PSK into two 4-PSK signals. The bit-error ratio for 10-Gbaud 7-PSK vector signals can be under hard-decision forward-error-correction threshold of 3.8×10-3 after 10 km standard single-mode fiber transmission.

Fiber-wireless integrated mobile backhaul network based on a hybrid millimeter-wave and free-space-optics architecture with an adaptive diversity combining technique.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel fiber-wireless integrated mobile backhaul network based on a hybrid millimeter-wave (MMW) and free-space-optics (FSO) architecture using an adaptive combining technique. Both 60 GHz MMW and FSO links are demonstrated and fully integrated with optical fibers in a scalable and cost-effective backhaul system setup. Joint signal processing with an adaptive diversity combining technique (ADCT) is utilized at the receiver side based on a maximum ratio combining algorithm. Mobile backhaul transportation of 4-Gb/s 16 quadrature amplitude modulation frequency-division multiplexing (QAM-OFDM) data is experimentally demonstrated and tested under various weather conditions synthesized in the lab. Performance improvement in terms of reduced error vector magnitude (EVM) and enhanced link reliability are validated under fog, rain, and turbulence conditions.

The benefits of convergence.

A multi-tier radio access network (RAN) combining the strength of fibre-optic and radio access technologies employing adaptive microwave photonics interfaces and radio-over-fibre (RoF) techniques is envisioned for future heterogeneous wireless communications. All-band radio spectrum from 0.1 to 100 GHz will be used to deliver wireless services with high capacity, high link speed and low latency. The multi-tier RAN will improve the cell-edge performance in an integrated heterogeneous environment enabled by fibre-wireless integration and networking for mobile fronthaul/backhaul, resource sharing and all-layer centralization of multiple standards with different frequency bands and modulation formats. In essence, this is a 'no-more-cells' architecture in which carrier aggregation among multiple frequency bands can be easily achieved with seamless handover between cells. In this way, current and future mobile network standards such as 4G and 5G can coexist with optimized and continuous cell coverage using multi-tier RoF regardless of the underlying network topology or protocol. In terms of users' experience, the future-proof approach achieves the goals of system capacity, link speed, latency and continuous heterogeneous cell coverage while overcoming the bandwidth crunch in next-generation communication networks.

Binary prefix for sampling frequency offset estimation in dispersive optical transmissions.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a method for sampling frequency offset (SFO) estimation in optical communication systems based on periodically inserted identical binary prefix. Different from conventional cyclic prefix, binary prefix provides not only high tolerance to chromatic dispersion in dispersive fiber transmission, but also the ability to estimate SFO by simple receiver-side digital signal processing. Moreover, this binary prefix based scheme is generally applicable to any advanced modulation formats. A proof-of-concept experiment is conducted to quantify the accuracy and tolerance of the scheme in estimating SFO. It is found that over a wide SFO range up to 341 ppm, the estimation error is kept under 20 ppb and signals are recovered with the same quality as with zero-offset sampling. The experimental results also confirm that this method is tolerant to link signal-to-noise ratio loss and dispersion, showing no additional penalty after transmission over a 40-km standard single-mode fiber at 1550 nm.

Multi-service RoF links with colorless upstream transmission based on orthogonal phase-correlated modulation.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a full-duplex radio-over-fiber (RoF) system with colorless upstream transmission based on orthogonal phase-correlated modulation (OPM). This new OPM scheme, which realized by a polarization rotator (PR) and a single-driver Mach-Zahnder modulator (MZM) at the central office (CO), achieves polarization-orthogonality between the optical carrier (OC) and subcarriers generated by radio frequency (RF) signals. By adjusting a polarization controller (PC) in the remote access units (RAU), different modulation schemes can be flexibly implemented, e.g. double-sideband (DSB) modulation for low RF service and optical carrier suppression (OCS) modulation for millimeter-wave (mm-wave) service. In the meantime, the OC can be reused for the upstream transmission without any filtering and additional PC. A proof-of-concept experiment is conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of proposed scheme, where downstream 800-Mb/s orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal at 58 GHz as an mm-wave service and 800-Mb/s OFDM signal at 0.3 GHz as a low frequency wireless service, as well as an upstream 1-Gb/s on-off keying (OOK) are simultaneously delivered in a shared architecture. By providing heterogeneous services and colorless upstream transmission, the proposed architecture can be seamlessly integrated in wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network (WDM-PON).

Flexible compensation of dispersion-induced power fading for multi-service RoF links based on a phase-coherent orthogonal lightwave generator.

A novel technique to simultaneously compensate dispersion-induced power fading for multi-service radio-over-fiber (RoF) links is proposed. At the central office (CO), a phase-coherent orthogonal lightwave generator (POLG) consisting of a polarization rotator (PR) and a single-driver Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) is used. By adjusting a polarization controller (PC) in the base station (BS), the phase difference between the orthogonal polarization carrier and two sidebands can be controlled, and the frequency response can be flexibly shifted for individual radio frequency (RF) service. We experimentally shift the destructive interference to the constructive interference at various frequencies for 25 km and 30 km fiber links. The performances of two services carrying 1 Gb/s on-off keying (OOK) data at 9 GHz and 16.6 GHz over a 30 km fiber in the proposed system show receiver sensitivity improvement of ∼12 dB at the bit error rate (BER) of 10(-3) compared with the conventional double sideband (DSB) modulation case.

Bidirectional multiband radio-over-fiber system based on polarization multiplexing and wavelength reuse.

A polarization multiplexing technique based on phase-shift-induced polarization modulation-to-intensity modulation (PloM-to-IM) convertor and a Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) is proposed to generate multi-band signals. Successful transmission of the traditional radio frequency, microwave (MW) and millimeter wave (MMW) signals is simultaneously achieved. Meanwhile, the intensity-constant optical carrier (OC) is reused for upstream 25-km transmission.

Switchable and spacing-tunable dual-wavelength thulium-doped silica fiber laser based on a nonlinear amplifier loop mirror.

A kind of switchable and spacing-tunable dual-wavelength thulium-doped silica fiber laser based on a nonlinear amplifier loop mirror is presented and experimentally demonstrated. By adjusting the polarization controllers (PCs), stable dual-wavelength operation is obtained at the 2 µm band. The optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) is better than 56 dB. The wavelength tuning is performed by applying static strain into the fiber Bragg grating. A tuning range from 0 to 5.14 nm is achieved for the dual-wavelength spacing. By adjusting the PCs properly, the fiber laser can also operate in single-wavelength state with the OSNR for each wavelength more than 50 dB.

Ultrahigh-capacity access network architecture for mobile data backhaul using integrated W-band wireless and free-space optical links with OAM multiplexing.

In this Letter, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel access network architecture using hybrid integrated W-band wireless and free-space optical (FSO) links with orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing. The transmission of a 20 GBd quadrature phase-shift keying signal modulated over 10 OAM modes has been demonstrated over a 0.6 m FSO link and a 0.4 m W-band wireless link at 100 GHz. The experimental results show that the architecture can support future ultrahigh-capacity, converged optical-wireless access networks that require extra bandwidth and system flexibility in mobile data networks.

Photonic microwave-signal-mixing technique using phase-coherent orthogonal optical carriers for radio-over-fiber application.

An optical-assisted microwave-mixing technique based on orthogonal and phase-coherent optical carriers is proposed and demonstrated. High-quality binary-phase-shift keying, amplitude-shift keying, and on-off keying microwave modulation at 20 GHz implemented in the optical domain have been tested. The ultra-high-bandwidth response of the proposed mixing device is also analyzed and compared. The phase stability of the photonic microwave signal in the radio-over-fiber system is improved by the proposed signal mixing technique.

A dual-polarization coherent communication system with simplified optical receiver for UDWDM-PON architecture.

A dual-polarization coherent heterodyne optical communication system using a simplified and low-cost demodulation scheme, for high-capacity UDWDM-PON access networks, is proposed and demonstrated. In this scheme, the signal light and reference light occupying each of the polarization modes are emitted simultaneously from the transmitter. The random phase fluctuations between the signal light and reference light are obviated completely by means of the application of the phase-correlated orthogonal lights. When the signal light in the each polarization mode is modulated with M-amplitude-shift keying (M-ASK) or M2-quadrature amplitude modulation (M2-QAM), the phase-stable intermediate frequency (IF) signal with M-ASK or M2-QAM modulation in the corresponding polarization mode is available for conversion in the electrical domain by beating the modulated signal light with the un-modulated reference light. A new IF signal with M2 or M4-QAM can be synthesized by the IF signals in both modes as long as the power ratio and time delay between the two-modes optical signals are set at the proper values. This is achieved without using polarization demultiplexing and complicated algorithms and the synthesized IF signal can be received and demodulated directly. A proof-of-concept transmission link with dual-polarization 2-ASK is demonstrated. The experimental results are consistent with theoretical predictions.