Timing Jitter Analysis and Mitigation in Hybrid OFDM-DFMA PONs

Hybrid orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-digital filter multiple access passive optical networks (OFDM-DFMA PONs) offer a cost-effective solution to the challenging requirements of next-generation optical access networks and 5G and beyond radio access networks. It is crucial to consider the impact of timing jitter in any ADC/DAC-based system, therefore this paper presents an in-depth investigation into the impacts of DAC/ADC timing jitter on the hybrid OFDM-DFMA PON's performance. We introduce improved accuracy white and coloured, DAC and ADC timing jitter models, applicable to any DSP-based transmission system. We prove that DAC and ADC timing jitter effects are virtually identical and investigate the effects of white/coloured timing jitter on upstream performance in hybrid OFDM-DFMA PONs and determine the associated jitter-induced optical power penalties. To mitigate against the timing jitter-induced performance degradations, a simple, but highly effective DSP-based technique is implemented which increases robustness against the timing jitter effects and significantly reduces timing jitter-induced optical power penalties. This consequently relaxes DAC/ADC sampling clock jitter requirements and so reduces implementation costs. White (coloured) timing jitter effects are shown to be independent of (dependent on) ONU operating frequency band and a trade-off between DAC and ADC jitter levels can be exploited to reduce ONU costs

Real-Time Demonstration of Concurrent Upstream and Inter-ONU Communications in Hybrid OFDM DFMA PONs

This paper presents the first real-time experimental demonstration of concurrent upstream and inter-ONU communications in a hybrid OFDM DFMA PON, enabled by a simple low-cost alteration to the remote node. Real-time FPGA-based DSP, incorporating a 128-pt FFT and a joint sideband processing technique, is used to demultiplex different sub-wavelength channels at the ONU and OLT receivers. The simple modification in the remote node removes the need for direct user-to-user data to pass via the OLT and core network thus providing ultra-low latency inter-ONU connectivity to support a variety of newly emerging latency sensitive 5G services. The presented PON is validated with two subwavelength bands, each capable of carrying one of two possible orthogonal channels ( I or Q ). The dynamic channel and subcarrier allocation allows flexible allocation of PON capacity between upstream and inter-ONU links for dynamic on-demand capacity allocation and also performance optimisation according to the different length dependent link characteristics. Moreover, the backscattering effect associated with upstream signals is shown to have negligible effect on the BER performance of the inter-ONU communications

Using Responsive Evaluation to Evaluate a Professional Conference

In a statewide conference on alternative methods for assessing students’ learning, we incorporated responsive evaluation methods into the structure of the conference. The application of these interactive evaluation techniques serves as a pilot study that illustrates the possible utility of these tech-niques in evaluating conferences. This paper provides a brief review of the literature surrounding responsive evaluation, a description of the responsive evaluation methods applied to this conference, and a discussion of the results and implications of this pilot study