TY - JOUR
T1 - Digital Radio Frequency Transport over Optical Fiber for 5G Fronthaul Links
AU - Hadi, Muhammad Usman
AU - Jung, Hyun
AU - Traverso, Pier Andrea
AU - Tartarini, Giovanni
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.
PY - 2019/4/5
Y1 - 2019/4/5
N2 - Radio over fiber (RoF) is an empowering technology for the next-generation wireless networks including fifth generation cloud radio access networks. In this paper, we propose a new fronthaul interface which has been demonstrated for a 20-MHz LTE signal having 64-Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) modulation over 50 km of standard single-mode fiber. The proposed methodology potentially reduces the overall bandwidth requirement of the link. The performance analysis has been demonstrated for conventional analog RoF (A-RoF) and proposed digital RoF (D-RoF). As a figure of merit, the performance evaluation of the two architectures is reported by analyzing error vector magnitude (EVM), signal-to-noise ratio and eye-opening penalty. It is shown that digital optical links can mitigate the impairments present in A-RoF links and can support the transmission up to 50 km. Moreover, it is shown that efficient D-RoF links can be obtained with a relatively low amount of analog-to-digital-converter resolution bits. For the D-RoF link, the EVM was measured to be less than 2 % at 50 km. This is within the LTE specifications, proving it as a cost and power effective solution for next-generation wireless networks.
AB - Radio over fiber (RoF) is an empowering technology for the next-generation wireless networks including fifth generation cloud radio access networks. In this paper, we propose a new fronthaul interface which has been demonstrated for a 20-MHz LTE signal having 64-Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) modulation over 50 km of standard single-mode fiber. The proposed methodology potentially reduces the overall bandwidth requirement of the link. The performance analysis has been demonstrated for conventional analog RoF (A-RoF) and proposed digital RoF (D-RoF). As a figure of merit, the performance evaluation of the two architectures is reported by analyzing error vector magnitude (EVM), signal-to-noise ratio and eye-opening penalty. It is shown that digital optical links can mitigate the impairments present in A-RoF links and can support the transmission up to 50 km. Moreover, it is shown that efficient D-RoF links can be obtained with a relatively low amount of analog-to-digital-converter resolution bits. For the D-RoF link, the EVM was measured to be less than 2 % at 50 km. This is within the LTE specifications, proving it as a cost and power effective solution for next-generation wireless networks.
KW - ACLR
KW - bandpass sampling
KW - EVM
KW - radio over fiber
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064135759&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1515/joc-2019-0051
DO - 10.1515/joc-2019-0051
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85064135759
SN - 0173-4911
JO - Journal of Optical Communications
JF - Journal of Optical Communications
ER -