DFT-Spread Spectrally Overlapped Hybrid OFDM-Digital Filter Multiple Access IMDD PONs

A novel transmission technique—namely, a DFT-spread spectrally overlapped hybrid OFDM–digital filter multiple access (DFMA) PON based on intensity modulation and direct detection (IMDD)—is here proposed by employing the discrete Fourier transform (DFT)-spread technique in each optical network unit (ONU) and the optical line terminal (OLT). Detailed numerical simulations are carried out to identify optimal ONU transceiver parameters and explore their maximum achievable upstream transmission performances on the IMDD PON systems. The results show that the DFT-spread technique in the proposed PON is effective in enhancing the upstream transmission performance to its maximum potential, whilst still maintaining all of the salient features associated with previously reported PONs. Compared with previously reported PONs excluding DFT-spread, a significant peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction of over 2 dB is achieved, leading to a 1 dB reduction in the optimal signal clipping ratio (CR). As a direct consequence of the PAPR reduction, the proposed PON has excellent tolerance to reduced digital-to-analogue converter/analogue-to-digital converter (DAC/ADC) bit resolution, and can therefore ensure the utilization of a minimum DAC/ADC resolution of only 6 bits at the forward error correction (FEC) limit (1 × 10−3). In addition, the proposed PON can improve the upstream power budget by >1.4 dB and increase the aggregate upstream signal transmission rate by up to 10% without degrading nonlinearity tolerances

Next generation passive optical networks based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing techniques

In recent decades, the industry of communications has acquired huge significance, and nowadays constitutes an essential tool for the society information. Thus, the exponential growth in demand of broadband services and the increasing amount of information to be transmitted have spurred the evolution of the access network infrastructure to effectively meet the user needs in an effective way in terms of costs of both installation and maintenance. Passive optical networks (PON) are currently considered the most efficient and least costly alternative to deploy fiber to the home environment. In order to allow many users simultaneously coexist PONs based on time multiplexing (TDMA) have been developed. Looking ahead, however, it is expected that these techniques do not meet the requirements on access networks. In consequence, other multiple access techniques such as Wavelength Division Multiplexing Access (WDMA) or Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Access (OFDMA) are currently under study and development for use in the next generation of PONs. Particularly, in recent years OFDM has stood out among the scientific community to be considered a solution with great potential on future implementation of PONs. This is especially true due to the capacity of OFDM to work with multilevel modulations, its high tolerance to chromatic dispersion, and its high flexibility and granularity in terms of bandwidth management. Given the above, the aim of this Thesis is to study deeply the advantages and challenges of implementing the standard OFDM as an access network solution; likewise, it offers solutions to improve its performance. In order to evaluate the main structures and strategies for OFDM-based PON, a comparative analysis of all of them is performed firstly, highlighting their sensitivity levels, maximum range and number of users. A key aspect for network providers is the cost of operation, deployment and maintenance of networks. As a low-cost solution, this Thesis proposes a network model called Statistical-OFDMA-PON based on intensity modulation and direct detection. In addition, dynamic bandwidth management strategies are applied into this model getting an improvement in the power balance which in turn, allows to increase the maximum range and the scalability in number of users. One of the main OFDM problems is the Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) which increases with the number of carriers. This thesis proposes a new algorithm based on folding the signal and transmitting auxiliary information in order to compensate the PAPR effect and thus increase the sensitivity of the optical system. On the other hand, OFDMA requires a large number of operations in the digital domain resulting in a high computational effort, which in turn results in an increased cost. For this reason, this Thesis presents a study on the optimization of the required resolution in the Digital-to-Analog / Analog-to-Digital Converters (DAC/ADCs) maintaining the transmission quality. The optimization of the computation time may make the OFDMA-based optical network more attractive for future PONs. Finally, another problem concerning the OFDM optical networks is their sensitivity to Phase Noise (PN). In this regard, this Thesis presents a study of the effect of the laser linewidth and its dependence on signal bandwidth. A mitigation technique based on pilot tones is implemented and the limiting values for the laser linewidth are found to be within the reach of present low-cost light sources.En estas últimas décadas, la industria de las comunicaciones ha adquirido gran importancia y hoy en día, constituye una herramienta imprescindible para el funcionamiento en la sociedad de la información. Así pues, el crecimiento exponencial en la demanda de servicios de banda ancha y la carga de información cada vez mayor que se necesita transmitir ha estimulado la evolución de las infraestructuras del tramo de acceso a la red para poder satisfacer las necesidades del usuario de forma efectiva en términos de costes de instalación y de mantenimiento. Las redes ópticas pasivas (Passive Optical Networks, PON) son actualmente consideradas la alternativa más eficiente y de menor coste para desplegar fibra hasta los hogares. Con el fin de permitir que muchos usuarios coexistan simultáneamente se han desarrollado PONs basadas en multiplexación en tiempo (Time Division Multiplexing Access, TDMA). De cara al futuro, sin embargo, se prevé que estas técnicas no permitan cubrir las exigencias sobre las redes de acceso. En consecuencia, otras técnicas de acceso múltiple al medio como el acceso múltiple por división de longitud de onda (Wavelength Division Multiplexing Access, WDMA) o el acceso múltiple por división de frecuencia ortogonal (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Access, OFDMA) se encuentran actualmente en proceso de estudio y desarrollo para su uso en la futura generación de PONs. En concreto, en los últimos años OFDM se ha destacado entre la comunidad científica al considerarse una solución con gran potencial para su futura implantación en redes de acceso pasivas. Esto es especialmente cierto debido a la capacidad que el OFDM para trabajar con modulaciones multinivel, así como su alta tolerancia a la dispersión cromática y a la gran flexibilidad y granularidad que posibilita en términos de gestión del ancho de banda. Por todo lo anterior, el objetivo de esta Tesis es estudiar con profundidad las ventajas y los retos de aplicar el estándar OFDM como solución de red de acceso; del mismo modo, ofrece soluciones para mejorar su rendimiento. Con el objetivo de evaluar las principales estructuras basadas en OFDM-PON, en primer lugar se realiza un análisis comparativo de todas ellas destacando sus niveles de sensibilidad, máximo alcance y número de usuarios. Un aspecto fundamental para los proveedores de red es el coste de operación, despliegue y mantenimiento de las redes. Como solución de bajo coste, esta Tesis propone un modelo de red llamado Statistical-OFDMA-PON que se basa en modulación de intensidad y detección directa. Además, este modelo se completa con estrategias de gestión dinámica del ancho de banda de los usuarios que conforman la estructura de red propuesta consiguiendo una mejora en el balance de potencias que permite aumentar distancia y número de usuarios. Uno de los principales problemas del OFDM es el alto nivel de la relación de potencia de pico a potencia media (Peak-to-Average Power Ratio, PAPR) creciente con el número de portadoras. Esta Tesis propone un nuevo algoritmo basado en el pliegue de la señal y la transmisión de información auxiliar para compensar el efecto del PAPR aumentando así la sensibilidad del sistema óptico. Por otro lado, OFDMA requiere un número elevado de operaciones en el dominio digital resultando en un alto esfuerzo computacional que a su vez se traduce en un aumento del coste. Por esta razón, esta Tesis presenta un estudio sobre la optimización de la resolución requerida en los conversores analógicodigital (Digital-to-Analog/Analog-to-Digital Converters, DAC/ADCs) manteniendo la calidad de transmisión. La optimización del tiempo de cómputo requerido puede dotar de un mayor atractivo la solución de red óptica basada en OFDMA. Finalmente, otro de los problemas que presentan las redes ópticas OFDM es su sensibilidad frente al ruido de fase (Phase Noise, PN). En este aspecto, esta Tesis presenta un estudio del efecto del ancho de línea del láser y su dependencia con el ancho de banda de la señal. Técnicas de mitigación basadas en tonos piloto han sido implementadas y se han encontrado los valores limitantes del ancho de línea dentro del alcance de los láseres de bajo coste

Wavelength reconfigurability for next generation optical access networks

Next generation optical access networks should not only increase the capacity but also be able to redistribute the capacity on the fly in order to manage larger variations in traffic patterns. Wavelength reconfigurability is the instrument to enable such capability of network-wide bandwidth redistribution since it allows dynamic sharing of both wavelengths and timeslots in WDM-TDM optical access networks. However, reconfigurability typically requires tunable lasers and tunable filters at the user side, resulting in cost-prohibitive optical network units (ONU). In this dissertation, I propose a novel concept named cyclic-linked flexibility to address the cost-prohibitive problem. By using the cyclic-linked flexibility, the ONU needs to switch only within a subset of two pre-planned wavelengths, however, the cyclic-linked structure of wavelengths allows free bandwidth to be shifted to any wavelength by a rearrangement process. Rearrangement algorithm are developed to demonstrate that the cyclic-linked flexibility performs close to the fully flexible network in terms of blocking probability, packet delay, and packet loss. Furthermore, the evaluation shows that the rearrangement process has a minimum impact to in-service ONUs. To realize the cyclic-linked flexibility, a family of four physical architectures is proposed. PRO-Access architecture is suitable for new deployments and disruptive upgrades in which the network reach is not longer than 20 km. WCL-Access architecture is suitable for metro-access merger with the reach up to 100 km. PSB-Access architecture is suitable to implement directly on power-splitter-based PON deployments, which allows coexistence with current technologies. The cyclically-linked protection architecture can be used with current and future PON standards when network protection is required

DSP-enabled Reconfigurable Optical Network Devices and Architectures for Cloud Access Networks

To meet the ever-increasing bandwidth requirements, the rapid growth in highly dynamic traffic patterns, and the increasing complexity in network operation, whilst providing high power consumption efficiency and cost-effectiveness, the approach of combining traditional optical access networks, metropolitan area networks and 4-th generation (4G)/5-th generation (5G) mobile front-haul/back-haul networks into unified cloud access networks (CANs) is one of the most preferred “future-proof” technical strategies. The aim of this dissertation research is to extensively explore, both numerically and experimentally, the technical feasibility of utilising digital signal processing (DSP) to achieve key fundamental elements of CANs from device level to network architecture level including: i) software reconfigurable optical transceivers, ii) DSP-enabled reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs), iii) network operation characteristics-transparent digital filter multiple access (DFMA) techniques, and iv) DFMA-based passive optical network (PON) with DSP-enabled software reconfigurability. As reconfigurable optical transceivers constitute fundamental building blocks of the CAN’s physical layer, digital orthogonal filtering-based novel software reconfigurable transceivers are proposed and experimentally and numerically explored, for the first time. By making use of Hilbert-pair-based 32-tap digital orthogonal filters implemented in field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), a 2GS/s@8-bit digital-to-analogue converter (DAC)/analogue-to-digital converter (ADC), and an electro-absorption modulated laser (EML) intensity modulator (IM), world-first reconfigurable real-time transceivers are successfully experimentally demonstrated in a 25km IMDD SSMF system. The transceiver dynamically multiplexes two orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) channels with a total capacity of 3.44Gb/s. Experimental results also indicate that the transceiver performance is fully transparent to various subcarrier modulation formats of up to 64-QAM, and that the maximum achievable transceiver performance is mainly limited by the cross-talk effect between two spectrally-overlapped orthogonal channels, which can, however, be minimised by adaptive modulation of the OFDM signals. For further transceiver optimisations, the impacts of major transceiver design parameters including digital filter tap number and subcarrier modulation format on the transmission performance are also numerically explored. II Reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) are also vital networking devices for application in CANs as they play a critical role in offering fast and flexible network reconfiguration. A new optical-electrical-optical (O-E-O) conversion-free, software-switched flexible ROADM is extensively explored, which is capable of providing dynamic add/drop operations at wavelength, sub-wavelength and orthogonal sub-band levels in software defined networks incorporating the reconfigurable transceivers. Firstly, the basic add and drop operations of the proposed ROADMs are theoretically explored and the ROADM designs are optimised. To crucially validate the practical feasibility of the ROADMs, ROADMs are experimentally demonstrated, for the first time. Experimental results show that the add and drop operation performances are independent of the sub-band signal spectral location and add/drop power penalties are <2dB. In addition, the ROADMs are also robust against a differential optical power dynamic range of >2dB and a drop RF signal power range of 7.1dB. In addition to exploring key optical networking devices for CANs, the first ever DFMA PON experimental demonstrations are also conducted, by using two real-time, reconfigurable, OOFDM-modulated optical network units (ONUs) operating on spectrally overlapped multi-Gb/s orthogonal channels, and an offline optical line terminal (OLT). For multipoint-to-point upstream signal transmission over 26km SSMF in an IMDD DFMA PON, experiments show that each ONU achieves a similar upstream BER performance, excellent robustness to inter-ONU sample timing offset (STO) and a large ONU launch power variation range. Given the importance of IMDD DFMA-PON channel frequency response roll-off, both theoretical and experimental explorations are undertaken to investigate the impact of channel frequency response roll-off on the upstream transmission of the DFMA PON system Such work provides valuable insights into channel roll-off-induced performance dependencies to facilitate cost-effective practical network/transceiver/component designs