On the 40 GHz Remote Versus Local Photonic Generation for DML-Based C-RAN Optical Fronthaul

• Published in: Journal of Lightwave Technology
• Main Authors: Vallejo-Castro, Luis, Mora Almerich, José, Nguyen, Dong-Nhat, Bohata, Jan, Almenar Terre, Vicenç, Zvanovec, Stanislav, Ortega Tamarit, Beatriz
• Other Authors: Universitat Politècnica de València. Instituto Universitario de Telecomunicación y Aplicaciones Multimedia - Institut Universitari de Telecomunicacions i Aplicacions Multimèdia, Universitat Politècnica de València. Departamento de Comunicaciones - Departament de Comunicacions, GENERALITAT VALENCIANA, AGENCIA ESTATAL DE INVESTIGACION, European Cooperation in Science and Technology, Ministry of Industry and Trade, República Checa, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of the Czech Republic
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 2021
• Subjects: Cloud radio access networks; Millimeter wave; Optical access networks; TEORIA DE LA SEÑAL Y COMUNICACIONES; DML
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10251/186572; https://doi.org/10.1109/JLT.2021.3102818

[EN] Local and remote photonic millimeter wave (mmW) signal generation schemes are theoretically and experimentally evaluated in order to compare both approaches for practical deployment in a cloud radio access network (C-RAN) fronthaul network. The paper presents a full comprehensive formulation of the frequency response of a system based on a directly modulated laser transmitting data over 40 GHz signal which is generated by external carrier suppressed modulation and optical frequency multiplication. Theoretical and experimental characterization of the system response at baseband and mmW band for local and remote generation setups show very good agreement. The remote configuration leads to a higher electrical output power (i.e., 15 dB higher in 25 km fiber links) than the local generation setup in the mmW band due to the combined effect of chirp and fiber dispersion, although intermodulation distortion is higher in the former case. Transmission experiments using quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) signals with 250 MHz bandwidth centered at 0.5 GHz over 10 and 25 km fiber links also confirm the superior performance of the remote setup, whereas the local setup leads to similar results to optical back-to-back (OB2B) measurements, which is also validated with data signals centered at different frequencies within the laser bandwidth frequency range. Finally, experimental results show the quality of the recovered signals in terms of error vector magnitude (EVM) as a function of the received electrical power and demonstrate that no further penalties are introduced by photonic mmW signal generation with respect to electrical back-to-back (EB2B) levels. This work was supported in part by Generalitat Valenciana through PROMETEO2017/103, in part by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades through FOCAL RTI2018-101658-B-I00, in part by MEYES under Grant LTC18008, in part by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Czech Republic under Grant FV40089, and in part by European Cooperation in Science and Technology ...