Impact of physical layer impairments on multi-band metro networks

The traffic increase in optical metro networks will saturate the network capacity in a near future, mainly due to new cloud and 5G services, as well as to an increasing number of network users. The use of other fiber bands, than the usual C-band, is seen as a possible near term solution, for this probable capacity crunch. In this work, a metro network horseshoe topology with nodes capable of switching both C and L-band signals is studied. In particular, we have considered for switching Cband signals, reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer and Filterless Drop and Waste (FD&W) node architectures, whereas for switching L-band signals, we have considered only FD&W solutions, both amplified and unamplified. An analytical formalism was developed to assess the impact of the physical layer impairments due to fiber transmission and switching node in a horseshoe network performance. Moreover, the cost and power consumption of the C-band and L-band nodes are analyzed. We concluded that in a network end of life scenario, the L-band nodes cost is 3.5 times higher than the C-band nodes, being 99% of this cost attributed to the transponders. In L-band transmission, a lightpath can cross several spans with 10 or 60 km in the amplified solution. In the unamplified solution, where frequency reuse is allowed, a lightpath consists only on a single 10 km span due to the maximum optical link budget. Considering a -20 dB crosstalk level, a 1.5 dB degradation on the optical power budget is observed.O aumento de tráfego nas redes metropolitanas irá saturar a capacidade das redes num futuro próximo, principalmente devido aos novos serviços em nuvem e 5G, bem como ao aumento do número de utilizadores. O uso de novas bandas na fibra ótica, além da banda C, é visto como uma possível solução para responder a esse aumento de capacidade. Neste trabalho, é apresentada a topologia de rede ”horseshoe”, que contém nós com capacidade para comutar sinais nas bandas C e L. Na banda C, consideram-se as arquiteturas com multiplexadores de inserção/extração reconfiguráveis e arquiteturas sem filtragem, e na banda L, consideram-se apenas soluções sem filtragem, com e sem amplificação. São estudadas, analiticamente, as limitações físicas da transmissão na fibra e comutação dos sinais nos nós da rede ”horseshoe”. Além disso, é realizado um estudo do custo, consumo e capacidade dos nós nas bandas C e L. Num cenário de fim de vida da rede, o custo dos nós na banda L é 3.5 vezes superior aos da banda C. O custo dos transponders constitui 99% do custo final. Na banda L, o sinal pode atravessar várias secções de 10 ou 60 km na solução amplificada. Na solução não amplificada, onde existe reuso de frequência, só há uma secção de 10 km devido ao orçamento máximo de potência na ligação. Para um nível de diafonia de -20 dB, o orçamento de potência diminui 1.5 dB

On the offline physical layer impairment aware RWA algorithms in transparent optical networks: state-of-the-art and beyond

In transparent optical networks with no regeneration, the problem of capacity allocation to traffic demands is called "Roting and Wavelength Assignment". Much work on this topic recently has focused on the dynamic case, whereby demands arrive and must be served in real-time. In addition, due to lack of regeneration, physical impairments accumulate as light propagates and QoT may become inappropiate (e.g., too high Bit Error Rate). Considering the physical layer impairments in the network planning phase gives rise to a class of RWA algorithms: offline Physical Layer Impairment Aware- (PLIA-)RWA. This paper makes a survey of such algorithms, proposes a taxonomy, and a comparison between these algorithms for common metrics. We also propose a novel offline PLIA-RWA algorithm, called POLIO-RWA, and show through simulations that it decreases blocking rate compared with other PLIA-RWA algorithms.Postprint (published version

Advanced fiber components for optical networks

Due to the tremendous growth in data traffic and the rapid development in optical transmission technologies, the limits of the transmission capacity available with the conventional erbium-doped amplifiers (EDFA), optical filters and modulation techniques have nearly been reached. The objective of this thesis is to introduce new fiber-optic components to optical networks to cope with the future growth in traffic and also to bring down the size and cost of the transmission equipment. Improvements in performance and in scalability of the optical networks are studied through simulations and experimental network set-ups. High-power single-mode laser sources operating at 980 nm are important in pumping EDFAs and Raman amplifiers. In this thesis, two new practical, fiber-coupled configurations of stable high-power cladding-pumped Yb-doped fiber sources operating at 977 nm are presented: a fiber laser and an ASE (amplified spontaneous emission) or superfluorescent source. Sources are based on high numerical aperture Yb-doped jacketed air-clad fiber and high brightness pump diodes. L-band EDFAs are used to expand amplification bandwidth beyond the C-band wavelengths. Traditional L-band EDFAs are costly devices, which are core-pumped with expensive high-power single-mode diodes. Cladding-pumping technology brings down the cost of the pump diodes in L-band EDFAs, since high-power but low-cost multimode pump diodes can then be used. Additionally, the flexibility in designing erbium-doped fiber is improved. In this thesis, a new design for L-band EDFA based on GTWave cladding-pumping technology is introduced. Simultaneous noise reduction and transient suppression in the amplifier is achieved by using a gain-clamping seed-signal. To increase the spectral efficiency of the optical transmission systems optical filters having square spectral response and linear phase, leading to zero dispersion both in-band and out-of-band, are required. The application of inverse scattering technique in conjunction with advanced fiber Bragg grating writing technique significantly reduces in-band dispersion and greatly improves grating characteristics. In this thesis, the in-band and out-of-band dispersion penalty of a cascade of linear-phase fiber Bragg grating (FBG) filters is experimentally measured and compared to the results with conventional apodized FBG filters. Fiber Bragg grating based distributed feedback fiber lasers (DFB FL) are attractive alternatives to semiconductor lasers. Output power and efficiency of DFB FLs can be significantly increased by using a master-oscillator-and-power-amplifier (MOPA) configuration, consequently degrading optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) and RIN of the master source. These trade-offs are studied in several MOPA configurations using core-pumped and cladding-pumped EDFAs as power amplifiers and compared to the results with a high-power stand-alone DFB-FLs, i.e. DFB FLs pumped with a high-power pump source. Finally, the performance and scalability of a bidirectional and a high-density metropolitan WDM ring networks is analyzed. Results show that the scalability limitation imposed by the amplified RIN arising from the Rayleigh backscattering in bidirectional WDM ring networks can be avoided by using low gain shared-pump EDFAs and directly modulated transmitters. In high-density metropolitan WDM networks based on non-zero dispersion shifted fibers the main limiting nonlinearity is four-wave mixing. In metropolitan areas distributed Raman amplification (DRA) is the most effective means reduce the effect of four-wave mixing.reviewe

Fully-photonic digital radio over fibre for future super-broadband access network applications

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityIn this thesis a Fully-Photonic DRoF (FP-DRoF) system is proposed for deploying of future super-broadband access networks. Digital Radio over Fibre (DRoF) is more independent of the fibre network impairments and the length of fibre than the ARoF link. In order for fully optical deployment of the signal conversion techniques in the FP-DRoF architecture, two key components an Analogue-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and a Digital-to-Analogue Converter (DAC)) for data conversion are designed and their performance are investigated whereas the physical functionality is evaluated. The system simulation results of the proposed pipelined Photonic ADC (PADC) show that the PADC has 10 GHz bandwidth around 60 GHz of sampling rate. Furthermore, by changing the bandwidth of the optical bandpass filter, switching to another band of sampling frequency provides optimised performance condition of the PADC. The PADC has low changes on the Effective Number of Bit (ENOB) response versus analogue RF input from 1 GHz up to 22 GHz for 60 GHz sampling frequency. The proposed 8-Bit pipelined PADC performance in terms of ENOB is evaluated at 60 Gigasample/s which is about 4.1. Recently, different methods have been reported by researchers to implement Photonic DACs (PDACs), but their aim was to convert digital electrical signals to the corresponding analogue signal by assisting the optical techniques. In this thesis, a Binary Weighted PDAC (BW-PDAC) is proposed. In this BW-PDAC, optical digital signals are fully optically converted to an analogue signal. The spurious free dynamic range at the output of the PDAC in a back-to-back deployment of the PADC and the PDAC was 26.6 dBc. For further improvement in the system performance, a 3R (Retiming, Reshaping and Reamplifying) regeneration system is proposed in this thesis. Simulation results show that for an ultrashort RZ pulse with a 5% duty cycle at 65 Gbit/s using the proposed 3R regeneration system on a link reduces rms timing jitter by 90% while the regenerated pulse eye opening height is improved by 65%. Finally, in this thesis the proposed FP-DRoF functionality is evaluated whereas its performance is investigated through a dedicated and shared fibre links. The simulation results show (in the case of low level signal to noise ratio, in comparison with ARoF through a dedicated fibre link) that the FP-DRoF has better BER performance than the ARoF in the order of 10-20. Furthermore, in order to realize a BER about 10-25 for the ARoF, the power penalty is about 4 dBm higher than the FP-DRoF link. The simulation results demonstrate that by considering 0.2 dB/km attenuation of a standard single mode fibre, the dedicated fibre length for the FP-DRoF link can be increased to about 20 km more than the ARoF link. Moreover, for performance assessment of the proposed FP-DRoF in a shared fibre link, the BER of the FP-DRoF link is about 10-10 magnitude less than the ARoF link for -19 dBm launched power into the fibre and the power penalty of the ARoF system is 10 dBm more than the FP-DRoF link. It is significant to increase the fibre link’s length of the FP-DRoF access network using common infrastructure. In addition, the simulation results are demonstrated that the FP-DRoF with non-uniform Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) is more robust against four wave mixing impairment than the conventional WDM technique with uniform wavelength allocation and has better performance in terms of BER. It is clearly verified that the lunched power penalty at CS for DRoF link with uniform WDM techniques is about 2 dB higher than non-uniform WDM technique. Furthermore, uniform WDM method requires more bandwidth than non-uniform scheme which depends on the total number of channels and channels spacing

Post-compensation of nonlinear distortions of 64-QAM signals in a semiconductor based wavelength converter

We experimentally investigate post-compensation of nonlinear distortions induced by a wavelength converter (WC) based on four-wave mixing in a semiconductor optical amplifier. The technique exploits a low-complexity digital filter-based back-propagation (DFBP) method. We perform post-compensation of nonlinear distortions following single stage wavelength conversion of 5 Gbaud 64- quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). We examine the DFBP performances in the presence of a degraded optical signal-to-noise ratio at the WC input and we explore the WC optimal operating conditions. Also, we experimentally demonstrate for the first time in the literature dual stage wavelength conversion of QAM signals, in particular, 5 Gbaud 64-QAM, and show that bit error rate below hard-decision forward error correction threshold is only possible with post-compensation of nonlinear distortions. These results are of importance for the development of wavelength routed networks requiring successive wavelength conversion stages to enhance routing capabilities

Characterization and design of coherent optical OFDM transmission systems based on Hartley Transform

Nowadays, due to huge deployment of optical transport networks, a continuous increase towards higher data rates up to 100 Gb/s and beyond is observed. Furthermore, an evolution of the current optical networks is forecasted, acquiring new functionalities, e.g. elastic spectrum assignment for the optical signals. The target for these new challenges in transmission is to find techniques ready to deal with a growth of demand for bandwidth continuously asked by network operators, for whom the standard systems do not meet the new functionalities while higher rates are being set up. A solution for covering all of those needs is to adapt techniques capable to deal with such enormous data rates, and ensuring the same high efficiency for long distances and mitigate the optical impairments accumulated along the transmission path. Additionally, these transmission techniques are expected to provide some degree of flexibility, in order to enhance the network flexibility. A promising technology that can fully cope with those requires is the coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CO-OFDM). CO-OFDM provides several advantages, namely high sensitivity and spectral efficiency, simple integration and possibility to fully recover a signal in phase, amplitude and polarization. These systems are composed by digital signal processing (DSP) blocks that easily process data and can equalize and compensate the main impairments, providing high tolerance for dispersion effects. However, CO-OFDM systems are not free from drawbacks. Their high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduce their tolerance to nonlinearities. Furthermore, CO-OFDM systems are sensitive to any frequency shift and phase offset. Hence, a constant envelope optical OFDM (CE-OFDM) is proposed for significantly reducing the PAPR and solving high sensitivity to nonlinear impairments. It consists in a phase modulated discrete multi-tone signal, which is coherently detected at the receiver side. An alternative transform, the discrete Hartley transform, is proposed to speed up calculations in the DSP and eliminate the need to have a Hermitian symmetry. The optical CE-OFDM by its unique flexibility and rate scalability turns out as a great technology applicable to different configurations, ranging from access to core networks. In case of access solutions, several cases are investigated. First, the optical CE-OFDM is applied for radio access network signals delivery by means of a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) overlay in deployed access architecture. A decomposed radio access network is deployed over an existing standard passive optical network (PON), capable to avoid interference and cross talks with access signals between network clients. The system exhibited narrow channel spacing, while reducing losses fed into the access equipment path. Next, a full duplex 10 Gb/s bidirectional PON transmission over a single wavelength with RSOA based ONU is investigated. The key point of that system is the upstream transmission, which is achieved re-modulating the phase of a downstream intensity modulated signal after proper saturation. The reported sensitivity performances show a power budget matching the PON standards and an OSNR easy to reach on non-amplified PON. Next, a flexible metropolitan area network of up to 100km with traffic add/drop using WDM is investigated. There the narrowing effect of the optical filters is studied. Finally, an elastic upgrade of the existing Telefonica model of the Spanish national core network is proposed. For that, the transceiver architecture is proposed to be operated featuring polarization multiplexing. Respect to the existing fixed grid, the flexible approach (enabled by the CE-OFDM transceiver) results into reduced bandwidth occupancy and low OSNR requirement.Hoy en día, debido al gran despliegue de las redes de ópticas de transporte, se espera un aumento continuado hacia mayores velocidades de datos, hasta 100 Gb/s y más allá. Por otra parte, la evolución que se prevé para las redes ópticas actuales, incluye la adquisición de nuevas funcionalidades, por ejemplo, la asignación del espectro de forma elástica para las señales ópticas. Por tanto, el claro desafío en cuanto a las tecnologías de transmisión es encontrar técnicas preparadas para hacer frente a un crecimiento de la demanda de ancho de banda; demanda que continuamente se incrementa por parte de los operadores de red, para quienes los sistemas estándar no se acaban de ajustar a las nuevas funcionalidades que esperan para la red. Una solución para cubrir todas estas necesidades es la adaptación de técnicas capaces de hacer frente a estas velocidades de datos enormes, y garantizar el mismo nivel de eficiencia para las largas distancias y mitigar las deficiencias ópticas acumuladas a lo largo de la ruta de transmisión. Además, se espera que estas técnicas de transmisión puedan proporcionar cierto grado de flexibilidad, a fin de mejorar y hacer más eficiente la gestión de la red. Una tecnología prometedora que puede hacer frente a estos requisitos es lo que se llama multiplexación por división de frecuencias ortogonales, combinado con la detección óptica coherente (CO-OFDM). CO-OFDM ofrece varias ventajas, entre otras: alta sensibilidad y eficiencia espectral y, sobre todo, la posibilidad de recuperar por completo de una señal en fase, la amplitud y la polarización. Estos sistemas están compuestos por bloques de procesado de señales digitales (DSP) que permiten detectar los datos fácilmente así como también compensar las principales degradaciones, proporcionando alta tolerancia a los efectos de dispersión. Sin embargo, los sistemas CO-OFDM no están exentos de inconvenientes. Su alta relación de potencia de pico a potencia media (PAPR) reduce sensiblemente la tolerancia no linealidades. Por otra parte, los sistemas CO-OFDM son sensibles a cualquier cambio de frecuencia y desplazamiento de fase. Por tanto, se propone un sistema OFDM de envolvente constante (CE-OFDM) para reducir significativamente la PAPR y solucionar la alta sensibilidad a las degradaciones no lineales. Consiste en una señal OFDM modulada en fase, que se detecta coherentemente en el receptor. Una transformada alternativa, la transformada discreta de Hartley, se propone para acelerar los cálculos en el DSP. El sistema CE-OFDM por su flexibilidad y escalabilidad única, resulta una tecnología aplicable a diferentes escenarios, que van desde las redes de acceso hasta las redes troncales. En el caso de las soluciones de acceso, se investigan varios casos. En primer lugar, el CE-OFDM aplica para el desarrollo y soporte de datos de una red radio, reutilizando una red óptica de acceso ya desplegada. A continuación, se investiga la transmisión bidireccional dúplex a 10 Gb / s sobre una sola longitud de onda empleando un RSOA a las unidades de usuario. El punto clave de este sistema es la transmisión en sentido ascendente, que se consigue re-modulando la fase de una señal de intensidad modulada después de saturar de forma adecuada. A continuación, se estudia una red de área metropolitana flexible de hasta 100 km. Concretamente el efecto de concatenación de filtros ópticos es el objetivo de este estudio. Finalmente, se propone una actualización elástica del modelo de Telefónica I+D para la red troncal española. Por ello, se propone operar el CE-OFDM en multiplexación de polarización. Los resultados muestran que esta combinación reduce sensiblemente el empleo de ancho de banda esto como los requisitos de los enlaces transmisión, reduciendo también los costes tanto de desarrollo como de operación y mantenimiento de la red.Avui dia, a causa del gran desplegament de les xarxes de òptiques de transport, s'espera un augment continuat cap a majors velocitats de dades, fins a 100 Gb/s i més enllà. D'altra banda, l'evolució que es preveu per a les xarxes òptiques actuals, inclou l'adquisició de noves funcionalitats, per exemple, assignació de l'espectre de forma elàstica per als senyals òptics. Per tant, el clar desafiament pel que fa a les tecnologies de transmissió és trobar tècniques preparades per fer front a un creixement de la demanda d'ample de banda; demanda que contínuament es fa per part dels operadors de xarxa, per als qui els sistemes estàndard no s'acaben d'ajustar a les noves funcionalitats que esperen per a la xarxa. Una solució per a cobrir totes aquestes necessitats és l'adaptació de tècniques capaces de fer front a aquestes velocitats de dades enormes, i garantir el mateix nivell d'eficiència per a les llargues distàncies i mitigar les deficiències òptiques acumulades al llarg de la ruta de transmissió. A més, s'espera que aquestes tècniques de transmissió puguin proporcionar cert grau de flexibilitat, per tal de millorar i tornar més eficient la gestió de la xarxa. Una tecnologia prometedora que pot fer front a aquests requisits és el que s'anomena multiplexació per divisió de freqüències ortogonals, combinat amb la detecció òptica coherent (CO-OFDM). CO-OFDM ofereix diversos avantatges, entre altres: alta sensibilitat i eficiència espectral i, sobretot, la possibilitat de recuperar per complet d'una senyal en fase, l'amplitud i la polarització. Aquests sistemes estan compostos per blocs de processament de senyals digitals (DSP) que permeten detectar les dades fàcilment així com també compensar les principals degradacions, proporcionant alta tolerància pels efectes de dispersió. No obstant això, els sistemes CO-OFDM no estan exempts d'inconvenients. La seva alta relació de potència de pic a potència mitjana (PAPR) redueix sensiblement la tolerància a no linealitats. D'altra banda, els sistemes de CO-OFDM són sensibles a qualsevol canvi de freqüència i desplaçament de fase. Per tant, es proposa un sistema OFDM d'envolvent constant (CE-OFDM) per a reduir significativament la PAPR i solucionar l'alta sensibilitat a les degradacions no lineals. Consisteix en un senyal OFDM modulat en fase, que es detecta coherentment en el receptor. Una transformada alternativa, la transformada discreta d'Hartley, es proposa accelerar els càlculs en el DSP. El sistema CE-OFDM per la seva flexibilitat i escalabilitat única, resulta una tecnologia aplicable a diferents escenaris, que van des de les xarxes d'accés fins a les xarxes troncals. En el cas de les solucions d'accés, s'investiguen diversos casos. En primer lloc, el CE-OFDM s'aplica per al desplegament i suport de dades d'una xarxa radio, reutilitzant una xarxa òptica d'accés ja desplegada. A continuació, s'investiga la transmissió bidireccional dúplex a 10 Gb/s sobre una sola longitud d'ona emprant un RSOA a les unitats d'usuari. El punt clau d'aquest sistema és la transmissió en sentit ascendent, que s'aconsegueix re-modulant la fase d'un senyal d'intensitat modulada després de saturar-la de forma adequada. A continuació, s'estudia una xarxa d'àrea metropolitana flexible de fins a 100 km. Concretament l'efecte de concatenació de filtres òptics és l'objectiu d'aquest estudi. Finalment, es proposa una actualització elàstica del model de Telefónica I+D per a la xarxa troncal espanyola. Per això, es proposa operar el CE-OFDM en multiplexació de polarització. Els resultats mostren que aquesta combinació redueix sensiblement l'ocupació d'ample de banda això com també els requisits dels enllaços transmissió, reduint també els costos tant de desplegament com d'operació i manteniment de la xarxa

Coexistence of optical systems on a physical layer

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá koexistencí optických systémů na společné fyzické vrstvě. Cílem této práce je analýza interakcí mezi různými optickými systémy na fyzické vrstvě, přičemž dílčím cílem je porovnání integrace těchto systémů za různých provozních podmínek. Data pro tuto práci byla získána pomocí simulačního prostředí Optsim. Na základě výsledků koexistence různých systémů za různých provozních podmínek lze vyvodit závěr, zda je možné systémy sloučit či se tato varianta nasazení nedoporučuje.This thesis deals with coexistence of optical systems on a physical layer. The main objective of this thesis is to analyse interactions between multiple optical systems at the physical layer, while partial goal is to compare the integration of these systems under different system conditions. Data for this study were obtained by computer simulation in Optsim environment. On the basis of the resulting models of coexistence of different transmission systems under various system conditions it can be concluded, whether it is recommended to combine certain systems or not