Efficiency Enhancement of RF-Pilot-Based Phase
Noise Compensation for Coherent Optical OFDM
Systems
S. Hussin, K. Puntsri, R. Noé
Optical Communication and High-Frequency Engineering
University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany
{hussin,puntsri}@ont.upb.de, noe@upb.de
Abstract—Phase noise effects must be taken into account
when studying the performance of coherent optical
orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CO-OFDM)
transmission systems. One drawback of CO-OFDM is the
high sensitivity to phase noise. In this paper, we explain
different kinds of phase noise effects on the OFDM signals
and analyze the phase noise effect induced by transmitter
laser and receiver local oscillator. We review the pilot-aided
and the standard RF-pilot (RFP) based phase noise
compensation methods and explain its drawbacks. We
provide two extended RFP schemes that overcome the
drawbacks of the standard RFP scheme and enhance the
performance of CO-OFDM systems. A simulation results of
a CO-OFDM transmission system with 4-QAM is simulated.
Furthermore, the phase noise effects for various laser
linewidths on the system performance is presented.
Index terms— CO-OFDM, phase noise, phase estimation,
quadrature ampltiude modulation (QAM).
I. INTRODUCTION
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is
a modulation technology which is used in many broadband
wired and wireless communication systems to combat
multipath fading. CO-OFDM systems have been
investigated as an appropriate modulation format for high
speed optical communications [1]. It has been proposed
for mitigation of chromatic dispersion (CD) [2] and
polarization mode dispersion (PMD) [3]. It requires a
transmitter laser and a local oscillator (LO) laser both with
particularly narrow linewidths to achieve high
performance for CO-OFDM. The receiver needs an extra
effective digital signal processing (DSP) to estimate and
compensate the phase noise and the frequency offset
between transmitter laser and LO. Polarization diversity
detection increases the DSP complexity at the receiver.
Moreover, coherent optical system allows detecting phase,
frequency and amplitude of the transmitted signal. The
most important drawbacks of CO-OFDM are the high
peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) and the high
sensitivity to frequency offset and phase noise [1]. Phase
noise in CO-OFDM transmission system is generated by
transmitter laser and receiver LO, but also by nonlinear
optical fiber transmission [4]. Optical amplifier noise also
deteriorates phase estimation. In this paper, we focus on
the phase noise induced by transmitter laser and LO.
The phase noise effects on the performance of wireless
OFDM have been studied in detail [5]. In optical OFDM
transmission system, pilot-aided and data-aided phase
estimation methods have been analyzed numerically [4]
and experimentally [6]. The main challenges of these
approaches are the linewidths of the transmitter laser and
LO used in this experiment were limited to 20 kHz.
Furthermore a small size of fast Fourier transformer
(FFT) with 128 points was used. Inter-carrier interference
(ICI) was assumed as a constant to all subcarriers. The
standard RFP-based phase noise compensation is another
technique [7], which was proposed for CO-OFDM
transmission system with laser linewidth 100 kHz and
256 FFT. The main drawback of this approach is that the
recovered RFP is distorted by the neighboe OFDM
subcarriers.
In this paper, we modify the standard RFP-based phase
noise compensation to recove a clear RFP signal which
enhance the performance of the CO-OFDM system. A
comparison between the modified RFP and the standard
RFP schemes are studied. Furthermore, the simulation
results of 12.8 Gbps CO-OFDM with 4-QAM and 256
FFT are presented. The paper is organized as follows: In
Section II, the phase noise is described in detail. Section
III describes of the phase noise compensation methods.
Simulation setup was presented in Section IV. In Section
V, we present and discuss the results and compare them.
Finally, conclusions are presented in Section VI.
II. PHASE NOISE
The investigation of the phase noise impact on system
performance is important. Phase noise has to be estimated
for an optimal approach and its effect to the system has to
be compensated. The phase noise contributions in CO-
OFDM transmission are generated from [4]:
(I) Nonlinear optical fiber transmission produces a
nonlinear phase noise. This nonlinear phase noise comes
from the interaction of amplified spontaneous emission
(ASE) with self-phase modulation (SPM), cross-phase
modulation (XPM) and four-wave mixing (FWM) [8].
(II) Transmitter laser and receiver LO cause a
common phase error (CPE) which is added to every
subcarrier. This rotates the constellation points, and ICI is
a complex value generated from laser phase drift, is added
to each subcarrier and appears as a Gaussian noise.
(III) Optical amplifiers generate ASE which acts as an
additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN).
Consequently, the phase noise in the received OFDM
signal consists of two components: a random noise
component that can be treated as AWGN and a constant
component produced from laser phase drift that modifies
all the subcarriers uniformly. In this paper we focus on the
phase noise induced by transmitter laser and receiver LO.
The system model for mth subcarrier in the ith OFDM
symbol can be expressed in time domain as
‫ݕ‬௜௠ ൌ  ‫ݔ‬௜௠ ݄௠ ݁ ௝ఝ೔ ൅  ௜௠ (1)
‫ݕ‬௜௠ ൌ  ‫ݕ‬஼௉ா ൅ ‫ݕ‬ூ஼ூ ൅  ௜௠ 
where ‫ݔ‬௜௠ and ‫ݕ‬௜௠ are transmitted and received signal
respectively, ݄௠ is the transfer function of the
transmission channel response for mth subcarrier, ௜௠ is
Gaussian noise with zero mean, and ߮௜ is the laser phase
noise which contains the effect of CPE and ICI phase
error. ‫ݕ‬஼௉ா is the received signal with CPE error and ‫ݕ‬ூ஼ூ
is the received signal with ICI error. The expression of
both terms can be found in details in [9]
ೞ೎ ିଵ ೞ೎ ିଵ
ͳ
‫ݕ‬஼௉ா ൌ   ෍ ‫ݔ‬௥ ෍ ݁ ௝ఝሺ௡ሻ ሺ͵ሻ
௦௖
௥ୀ଴ ௡ୀ଴
where ௦௖ is number of subcarriers. In (3) CPE is a
constant value and adds to every subcarrier which causes
a rotation of the constellation. Since the rotation is
common, the phase noise can be estimated and
compensated by using pilot as described in [4] and [7]:
ೞ೎ ିଵ ೞ೎ ିଵ
ͳ ሺ௥ି௞ሻ௡
௝ଶగ
‫ݕ‬ூ஼ூ ൌ   ෍ ‫ݔ‬௥ ෍ ݁ ௝ఝሺ௡ሻ ݁ ೞ೎
௦௖ ௥ୀ଴
௡ୀ଴
௥ஷ௞
In (4), ICI is the summation of the average of phase
noise with a spectrum shift multiplied by each subcarrier
of ௦௖ െ ͳ which acts as a random noise. When the laser
linewidth is greater, the ICI effect will be dominated over
the CPE effect. Because of its random nature, the ICI
effect is difficult to compensate. In [4], the authors
assumed a common ICI for all subcarriers and then they
could use his method to compensate ICI effect. But in [7],
the authors assumed a random term for ICI which is more
accurate.
Fig. 1(a) shows the combination of the ICI and the CPE
effects on a 4-QAM-OFDM signal after demodulation. A
rotation of the subcarriers and some ICI can be shown.
After compensating ICI, the signal with CPE only will be
detected as shown in Fig. 1(b). Owing to the rotation of
the constellation is common for all subcarriers, after
compensating the CPE, the clear constellation digram
looks as shown in Fig. 1(c).
III. PHASE NOISE METHODS
Pilot-aided and data-aided phase estimation methods
have been studied numerically for a CO-OFDM
transmission at 8 Gbps over 1000 Km standard single
mode fiber (SSMF) [4].The authors compared the two
methods and concluded that by using pilot-aided phase
estimation, the optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) can
be improved by 1 dB at bit error rate (BER) of 10-3.
(2)
Fig. 1: Phase noise effect in the OFDM signal
Experimental results for both techniques have been
presented in [6]. In pilot-aided phase estimation a few ܰ௣
uniformly distributed pilots are transmitted with the ܰ௦௖
subcarriers of OFDM spectrum. The authors found that 5
pilots are suitable for effective phase estimation.
At the receiver, the estimated laser phase drift is
ሺͶሻ calculated by computing the average of the difference
between the received and the transmitted pilots for each
symbol in frequency domain. The estimated phase drift
can be written as
ே೛
ͳ
߮௜ ൌ  ෍ሼƒ”‰ሺ ‫ݕ‬௜௞ ሻ െ ƒ”‰ሺ ‫ݔ‬௜௞ ሻሽሺͷሻ
ܰ௣
௞ୀଵ
where ‫ݕ‬௜௞ is the received ith pilot, ‫ݔ‬௜௞ is the
transmitted pilot, ƒ”‰ሺ ‫ݕ‬௜௞ ሻis the angle of the received pilot
and ƒ”‰ሺ ‫ݔ‬௜௞ ሻ is the angle of the transmitted pilot.
Therefore, the estimated phase drift can be used to
compensate for any phase distortion in OFDM signal. The
main drawbacks of this method are that 20 kHz laser
linewidth is very low and using short OFDM symbols to
set that the effect ICI is common for all subcarriers. This
assumption cannot be used for laser linewidth with 100
kHz or more.
The standard RFP-based phase noise compensation is
able to compensate for both ICI and CPE. It has been
studied for a CO-OFDM transmission at 25.8 Gbps over
4160 km SSMF with 100 kHz laser linewidth [7], the
phase noise compensates by inserting an RFP tone in the
middle of the transmitted OFDM signal as shown in Fig.
2(a), this can be done by setting the first element on the
OFDM frame to 0 as shown in Fig. 2(b) and inserting a
small DC volt in the I/Q components. Therefore, this RFP
will be affected by the phase noise and distorted in the
same way as OFDM signal. At the receiver, the received
RFP signal is selected by a low-pass filter (LPF). After a
complex conjugation it multiplies the received OFDM
signal to compensate for any phase distortion. It is
important to optimize the pilot-to-power ratio (PSR) [7].
The PSR is power ratio between RFP signal and OFDM
signal. For low PSR, the RFP is very weak and phase
noise compensation will be reduced. For high PSR, the
OFDM signal power becomes low and the received
OFDM signal cannot recovered correctly. In [10], the
authors analyze and compare the pilot-aided and the
standard RFP phase estimation methods. They found that
the standard RFP is more suitable for extensive laser
linewidths and provided a fast phase dynamic. Moreover,
it can compensate ICI.
The main disadvantage of this method is that the
residual received RFP is distorted by the received OFDM
sidebands. The LPF cannot separate only RFP as shown in
Fig. 2(a). Also, they used RF up-conversion to shift the
electrical OFDM signal to high frequency in electrical
domain before modulation which increases the bandwidth
and decreases the spectrum efficiency. In [7] and [11], the
authors used FFT with 256 points, 165 OFDM subcarriers
and 90 zero padding (ZP) which are inserted in the middle
of OFDM subcarriers and 1 point as an RFP which
inserted in the first element as shown in Fig. 2(b). In [12],
the authors use 2% for spectral gap around the RFP but it
is still not enough to separate the clear RFP. The ZP is
inserted in the middle of OFDM subcarriers to shift the
alias which generates from the sampling process away
from the OFDM signal. This configuration is called
oversampling.
OFDM signal RF signal
Fig. 2: OFDM spectrum and frame structure
for the standard RFP algorithm
To separate the RF tone completely from the OFDM
signal, we can insert the ZP at the both edges of OFDM
frame as shown if Fig. 3(b). This configuration is called
guard band. A LPF can simply separate the clear RFP as
shown in Fig. 3(a). But the alias will not be removed as the
oversampling.
Therefore, we provide the enhancement RFP (E-RFP)
phase noise compensation which removes the alias and
can separate the clear RFP from the OFDM sidebands. In
the E-RFP phase noise compensation algorithm, we insert
an RFP tone in the middle of the transmitted OFDM signal
as mention above. The zeros are padded at both edges and
in the middle of OFDM frame as shown in Fig. 3(d). Band
shifting and oversampling configurations are combined. It
is important to optimize the number of ZP which is
inserted in the OFDM frame. The more zeros are added,
the spectrum efficiency and bit rate will decrease. In the E-
RFP algorithm, LPF can be used to separate RFP from the
OFDM sidebands and the alias is shifted from OFDM
signal as shown in Fig. 3(c).
guard band
OFDM
guard band
Fig. 3: OFDM spectrum and frame structure for
the guard band-RFP & the E-RFP algorithms
IV. SIMULATION SETUP
The generation and analysis of the OFDM signal and
system performance are simulated using Matlab™. We
apply the standard RFP, the guard band-RFP and the E-
RFP phase noise compensation schemes to CO-OFDM
back-to-back configuration. Fig. 4 shows the schematic of
CO-OFDM transmission systems. An OFDM signal with
a data rate of 12.8 Gbps is generated. This bit stream is
converted from serial to parallel and then mapped with 4-
QAM. An IFFT/FFT size of 256 is used with 165 OFDM
subcarriers and 92 ZP. The first channel is used to insert
the RFP tone. In the standard RFP scheme, 91 zeros are
padded from channel 84 to channel 173 of the FFT
channels. While 91 zeros in the guard band-RFP scheme
are inserted from channel 2 to channel 46 and from
channel 212 to channel 256. In the E-RFP scheme, 91
zeros are inserted from channel 2 to channel 23, from
channel 106 to channel 150 and from channel 234 to
channel 256. A cyclic prefix (CP) and a cyclic suffix (CS)
having 12.5% of the symbol length is added. The
information symbols are serialized and converted to
analog electrical signal, using a DAC. A square root
raised cosine filter with a roll-off factor of 0.2 removes
the alias and filters the main OFDM signal. A small DC
bias is inserted in the I and Q branches of the I/Q mixer to
achieve an optimal. The phase noise which is induced by
transmitter laser and LO can be simulated by using a
Gaussian distribution because it is a random phase and
fluctuates with the time. To test the OSNR performance,
ASE noise is added to control the received OSNR. The
OSNR is calculated as the noise power in a 12.5 GHz
bandwidth.
At the receiver, The phase noise compensation for the
applied RFP schemes is performed by separating RFP
from the OFDM signal using using 4th order butterworth
LPF, after a complex conjugation the RFP multiplies with
the recovered OFDM. The CP and SP are removed. By
an FFT the OFDM signal is demodulated. After removal guard band-RFP phase noise compensation algorithms can
of the ZP each QAM symbol is decoded by QAM de- reach a BER of 10-3 at 3 MHz and 2 MHz linewidth,
mapping. respectively. Our provided schemes perform better than
the standard RFP scheme, even at 1 MHz linewidth.
0
10
CO-OFDM, standard RFP
CO-OFDM, guard band-RFP
CO-OFDM, E-RFP

-1
10

10-2

BER
-3
10

-4
10

-5
10
4 5 6 7
10 10 10 10
Fig. 4: A CO-OFDM transmission system Linewidth (Hz)

Fig. 6: BER vs. Linewidth

V. PERFORMANCE COMPARISON
The performance of the proposed models is simulated The provided approaches with frequency gap between
for 12.8 Gbps CO-OFDM back-to-back with 4-QAM and the OFDM sidebands enhance the performance of the CO-
256 FFT. A bit error ratio (BER) is simulated for each OFDM systems compared with the standard RPF-based
laser having a linewidth of 100 KHz; the sampling rate is phase noise compensation [7].
set to 10 GHz. Fig. 7 presents the constellation diagram for the
In Fig. 5, the influence of OSNR on the BER is shown. standard RFP and the E-RFP schemes. In Fig. 7(a), the
A BER of less than 10-3 cannot be obtained for the standard RFP scheme does not compensate all phase noise.
standard RFP scheme. The required OSNR for BER of It has some noise act as ICI. While, the E-RFP scheme
10-3 is 15.5 dB and 15 dB for the guard band-RFP and the compensates all phase noise and provides a clear
E-RFP phase noise compensation algorithms respectively. constellation diagram as shown in Fig. 7(b).
Compared with the guard band-RFP, the E-RFP can
improve OSNR by 0.5 dB.
0
10
CO-OFDM, standard RFP
CO-OFDM, guard band-RFP
CO-OFDM, E-RFP

-1
10

10-2
BER

10
-3 Fig. 7: Constellations diagram of 4-QAM-OFDM
using the standard RFP and the E-RFP schemes

-4
VI. CONCLUSIONS
10
In this paper, we define the different kinds of the phase
noise effects on the OFDM signals. The impact of the
10
-5
phase noise induced by the transmitter laser and LO has
0 10 20 30 40 been studied. The Pilot-aided and the RFP-based phase
OSNR(dB)
noise compensation algorithms have been presented. The
Fig. 5: BER vs. OSNR guard band-RFP and the E-RFP based phase noise
compensation schemes have been provided which avoid
Fig. 6 shows the BER performance with varying laser drawbacks of the standard RFP scheme. Using the E-RFP
linewidth at 18 dB of OSNR. The standard RFP scheme scheme, the system performance imporoves the OSNR by
can not achieve a BER of 10-3, while the E-RFP and the
0.5 dB compared with the guard band-RFP scheme. The
standard RFP scheme can not obtain BER of less than
10-3. The simulation results show that the E-RFP and the
guard band-RFP schemes have a good tolerance to laser
linewidth.
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