2009 OSA/OFC/NFOEC 2009 a1774_1.pdf OWF2.pdf OWF2.

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Simple Multi-Gbps 60 GHz Radio-over-Fiber Links Employing Optical and Electrical Data Up-conversion and Feed-Forward Equalization
Anthony Ngoma, Michael Sauer, Frank Annunziata, Wen-Jr Jiang*, Chun-Ting Lin*, Jyehong Chen*, PoTsung Shih* and Sien Chi*
Corning Incorporated, SP-DV-02-9, Corning, New York, 14831, USA Tel. (607) 974-9286 e-mail: ngomaa@corning.com *Department of Photonics and Institute of Electro-Optical Engineering, National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan

Abstract: We show that optical up-conversion performs better than electrical up-conversion in simple IMDD-based 60GHz radio-over-fiber links. Feed-forward equalization improved the performances of both systems, enabling error-free transmission of 4 Gbps over 500m of singlemode fiber. 2008 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (060.2330) Fiber optics communications; (060.2360) Fiber optic links and subsystems

1. Introduction Rapidly increasing demand for high bit-rate wireless communication is fueling renewed interest in the license free spectrum at 60 GHz (57 64 GHz in the US). The 7 GHz license-free spectrum is the most promising path to multiGbps wireless communication. However, 60 GHz wireless networking presents many technical challenges owing to the high carrier frequency and the wide channel bandwidth used [1][3]. The challenges include the significantly higher air-link loss at 60 GHz (about 30 dB higher than at 2.4 GHz), and reduced device performance and lower power efficiency. In addition, the wide channel bandwidth means higher noise power and reduced SNR. All these factors make wireless networking at 60 GHz picocellular in nature with the cell size typically smaller than 10 m. Consequently, multi-gigabit-per-second wireless networking at 60 GHz requires an extensive high-capacity feeder network to interconnect the access points. Radio-over-Fiber (RoF) technology can provide the required feeder network as it is best suited to deal with the demands of a picocell network [4]. However, it is imperative that the employed RoF links are as simple as possible to reduce cost, while providing the needed performance. In [5] we showed that the performance of simple electrically up-converted IMDD RoF links for single-carrier 60GHz systems may be severely limited by the non-flat channel response, which causes severe signal distortion due to ISI , even when simple ASK modulation is used. We showed that the RoF-frequency-response-induced distortion can be dealt with effectively by employing simple feed-forward equalization to the received baseband signal as an alternative to complex signal processing used in, for instance OFDM [6]. In this paper we investigate the impact of channel response flatness on the performance of an alternative simple IMDD RoF system combining (optical) direct baseband-to-60 GHz data up-conversion and signal transport. We compare the performances of the two 60 GHz RoF systems delivering up to 4 Gbps over 500 m of fiber and study in detail the performance improvement due to feedforward equalization on each system. 2. Experimental setups The two setups used in the experiments are illustrated in Fig. 1. The basic IMDD system in both cases consisted of a laser diode followed by a high-speed Mach Zehnder intensity modulator (IM). The signal from the IM was amplified by an Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA), filtered for ASE noise and then fed into the optical fiber for transmission. At the end of the optical fiber, a 70 GHz photodetector was used to generate the ASK-modulated 60 GHz signal. The generated signal was filtered with a bandpass filter having a -3 dB bandwidth of 3 GHz centered around 60.5 GHz. Instead of being connected to an antenna, the 60 GHz signal was fed directly into a 1-step electrical receiver, which down-converted the 60 GHz signal directly to baseband. The received baseband data was then captured with a 40 GS/s real-time scope (ADC) and passed on to a computer for further analysis in Matlab. The difference between the two systems was that in one case (Sys. A) the baseband data was fed directly to a 2.5 Gbps directly modulated laser and the 60 GHz LO used to drive the IM. In the second case (Sys. B), the baseband data was up-converted directly to 60 GHz by an electrical transmitter, whose output was then used to drive the IM. The systems were kept as simple as possible because some applications such as in-building applications do not need the advanced performance (e.g. long distance transmission) that many sophisticated systems may offer.

978-1-55752-865-0/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

 2009 OSA/OFC/NFOEC 2009 a1774_1.pdf OWF2.pdf OWF2.pdf

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Fig. 1. Experimental setup of the simple IMDD 60 GHz Radio-over-Fiber link employing Feed-Forward Equalization with (a) optical data up-conversion, and (b) electrical data up-conversion

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Fig. 2. Frequency response (down-converted) of the 60 GHz Radio-over-Fiber links without Feed-Forward Equalization

3. Results and Discussion The S21 responses of the two systems measured between the input and the output are shown in Fig. 2. To increase the electrical spectrum utilization efficiency, one of the side bands of the 60 GHz signal generated at the output of the photodiode was filtered off by the 60 GHz bandpass filter. This was achieved by setting the LO frequency to 61.8 GHz. Fig. 2 shows that the responses of both systems are not uniform over the 3 GHz channel bandwidth. System A shows a much better response (6 dB) than system B (14 dB). Both systems exhibited distorted eye diagrams for various bit-rates up-to 4 Gbps. The impact of feed-forward equalization on the captured baseband data was analyzed by applying a feed-forward equalization algorithm implemented in Matlab. The equalization algorithm was based on least-mean-square adaptation to maximum the eye-opening at the decision points. The result based on the calculation of the estimated BER for 4 Gbps data transmission is summarized in Fig. 3. An error floor is observed in both systems, with and without 500m of standard single-mode fiber transmission. However, system B shows a much higher error floor (104 ) compared to system A (10-5 w/o fiber, <10-8 w/ fiber). It is clear from Fig. 3 that feed-forward equalization substantially improved the sensitivity of both systems with and without fiber transmission, making it possible to have error free transmission. The sensitivities of the two systems for 4 Gbps data transmission with 500m fiber transmission and equalization were -9 dBm and -7 dBm for the optically and the electrically up-converted systems, respectively. Although not shown here, similar trends were observed for lower bit-rates, albeit with a better sensitivity. The required minimum number of equalizer taps for different conditions and bit-rates was investigated. The result is summarized in Fig. 4. It was observed that system A required 16 taps while system B required 20 taps to achieve the best system performance. Furthermore, the minimum number of taps for best performance was independent of the bit-rate and was the same with and without 500 m fiber transmission. The reason for the performance difference between the two systems is due to the fact that the responses of the two systems are dominated by different electrical/optical components. The response of the optically up-converted system is dominated by the response of the directly modulated laser diode, which is easily uniform over the channel bandwidth. However, the response of the electrically up-converted system is dominated by the responses of the electrical up-converter itself and the high-speed IM. This was confirmed by measuring the S21 response of the IM, which apart from rolling off in amplitude was also found to have several peaks of more than 4 dB over the utilized bandwidth (3 GHz).

 2009 OSA/OFC/NFOEC 2009 a1774_1.pdf OWF2.pdf OWF2.pdf

0.2 5 0. 2 0.1 5 0. 1 0.0 5 0 - 0.0 5 -0. 1 - 0.1 5 -0. 2 - 0.2 5 0.2 5 0. 2 0.1 5 0. 1 0.0 5 0 - 0.0 5 -0. 1 - 0.1 5 -0. 2 - 0.2 5 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20

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Fig. 3. Performance improvement due to feed-forward equalization in the 60 GHz RoF systems employing (a) optical up-conversion, and (b) electrical up-conversion

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Fig. 4. Feed-forward equalizer tap number optimization for the (a) optically up-converted system, and (b) electrically up-converted system; both systems with 500m standard single-mode fiber transmission.

4. Conclusions We have investigated the channel responses of two simple 60 GHz RoF systems and the impact of their non uniform responses on the performance of multi-Gbps ASK modulated signal transmission on a single RF carrier. It was found that the optically up-converted system performed significantly better than the electrically up-converted system, whose non uniform frequency response was dominated by the non-uniform responses of the electrical transmitter and the high-speed optical intensity modulator. In both cases feed-forward equalization improved the sensitivity of the system significantly. The largest improvement occurred with the electrically up-converted system where a high error floor of about 10-4 was reduced allowing for error free transmission. It was confirmed that simple IMDD RoF systems assisted by feed-forward equalization applied to the recovered baseband data can be used to distribute > 4 Gbps ASK modulated 60 GHz signals on a single RF carrier over > 500m standard single-mode fiber. Simple RoF systems are essential for low-cost applications such as in-building 60 GHz wireless signal distribution. 5. References [1] B. Razavi, Gadgets gab at 60 GHz, IEEE Spectrum, vol. 45, no. 2, 46-58, (2008). [2] C. Park, and T. S. Rappaport, Short-range wireless communications for Next-Generation Networks: UWB, 60 GHz millimeter-wave WPAN, and ZigBee, IEEE Wireless Communications, vol. 14, no.4, 70-78, (2007). [3] P. Smulders, Exploiting the 60 GHz band for local wireless multimedia access: prospects and future directions, IEEE Comm. Mag., vol. 40, no. 1, 140-146, (2002). [4] M. Sauer, A. Kobyakov, J. George, Radio over fiber for picocellular network architectures, JLT, vol. 25, no. 11, 3301-3320, (2007). [5] A. Ngoma, M. Sauer, J. George, and D. Thelen, Bit-rate doubling in multi-Gbps wideband ASK-modulated 60 GHz RoF links using linear feed-forward equalisation and direct conversion transceivers, ECOC2008, September 2008. [6] M. Huchard, P. Chanclou, B. Charbonnier, F. van Dijk, G. H. Duan, C. Gonzalez, F. Lelarge, M. Thual, M. Weis, and A. Stohr, 60 GHz Radio Signal Up-conversion and Transport Using a Directly Modulated ModeLocked laser, in Proceedings of the MWP 2008 (IEEE, New York, 2008), PDP2.