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Techniques of Millimeter-wave Signal Generation in ROF Systems: A Review

Article in International Journal of Computer Applications & Information Technology · August 2012

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 www.ijcait.com International Journal of Computer Applications & Information Technology
Vol. I, Issue II, September 2012 (ISSN: 2278-7720)

Techniques of Millimeter-wave Signal Generation in ROF

Systems: A Review
Davinder Singh Preeti Singh
UIET, Panjab University, UIET, Panjab University,
Chandigarh Chandigarh

ABSTRACT Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) video signals over 1-

km Multi-Mode Fiber (MMF) [5]. Figure 2 shows a schematic of
Millimeter-wave ROF (Radio Over Fiber) technology has experimental set up where the video signal is transmitted from a
emerged as a competitive candidate that can meet the increasing mobile laptop to a desktop PC.
demands of broadband multimedia services for wireless users.
Optical generation of mm-wave signal is one of the most
important technologies of millimetre-wave ROF system. Present
paper discusses the various techniques of mm-wave generation
and their relative pros and cons.

Keywords
Fiber optic communication, laser, modulator, Millimeter wave,
Radio-over-fibre

1. INTRODUCTION
Fig 1: Direct Intensity Modulation
Recently there has been observed a huge requirement of
Bandwidth in wireless and wired communication with the advent
of bandwidth demanding applications like video based interactive
and multimedia services. Congestion and limited frequency
spectrum has haltered the data rates of current wireless systems to
Megabits-per-second(Mbps) only. To achieve high data rates, the
viable solution is bandwidth and the most assured path to
multigigabit-per-second (Gbps) is the use of millimeter (mm)-
wave frequencies which occupies large bands of frequency
spectrum [1]. FCC „s 60-GHz band that offers a huge bandwidth
of 7GHz (57-64 GHz) has gained much attention in recent years
[2][3]. Optical fiber is the ideal medium for millimeter-wave‟s
transmission due to its low loss, low cost and wide bandwidth [4].
The resultant technology is called Radio-over-Fibre technology
(ROF). Radio-over-Fibre in mm-wave band is the promising
technology to meet challenges of next generation communication Fig 2: A schematic of experimental set up employing Direct
systems. In the ROF system, generation of optical mm-wave is Intensity modulation [5]
one of the key techniques. This paper discusses the various This method is feasible only when the operating RF frequencies
techniques to generate optical mm-wave at around 60 to 120 GHz. are below the modulation cut-off frequency of the laser diode
used. So far, the highest cut-off frequency of lasers is reported to
2. OPTICAL GENERATION OF MM-WAVE be about 40 GHz [6]. Most of the commercially available lasers
SIGNALS have modulation frequencies of about 10 GHz or less. Though this
method is simple and efficient but is not appropriate to mm-wave
Various techniques have been developed to generate mm-wave bands as the bandwidth of modulating signal is limited by the
signals. Ensuing text briefly discusses the main mm-wave signal modulation bandwidth of laser. To generate high frequencies,
generation techniques. modulating signal should also be at high frequency. This is not
possible due to limited Bandwidth and laser‟s non-linearity. For
2.1 Direct Intensity Modulation fibre transmission of higher frequencies such as millimeter-wave
The direct intensity modulation is based on using a mm-wave signals, the viable option is optical external modulation.
carrier source to directly modulate a high speed LASER and then
2.2 External Modulation
the mm-wave signal can be recovered at photodiode by direct
detection. The method of direct intensity modulation is shown in In this method, the laser operates in CW mode and an external
modulator such as Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) or electro-
Figure 1. In 2003, Hartmannor et al. made use of directly absorption modulator (EAM) is used to modulate the intensity of
modulated DFB lasers to transmit high data-rate Orthogonal light. Its configuration is simple. But it has some disadvantages

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Vol. I, Issue II, September 2012 (ISSN: 2278-7720)

like fibre dispersion effects, high insertion loss. It also suffers

from distortion due to the intrinsic nonlinearity of the modulators.
The scheme of generating mm-wave signal by using MZM as an
external modulator was first proposed by O'Rcilly et al. in 1992
[7]. The phenomenon of external intensity modulation using
MZM is shown in figure 3. A single DFB laser source is used
together with a MZM. By biasing the MZM at V , the half-wave
voltage of MZM, the optical carrier at centre wavelength will be
suppressed. The beat of upper and lower 1st side-modes will
generate the required mm-wave signal with frequency twice to
that of the mm-wave signal applied to MZM. Many variants of
this method have been proposed [8]-[17].
Fig 4: Wideband tunable mm-wave signal generation based on
external intensity modulation
2.2.2 Phase-Modulation-Based Approach
In order to suppress the even or odd order optical sidebands, the
MZM needs to be biased at the minimum or maximum point of
the transfer function, which would cause the bias-drifting
problem, leading to poor system robustness, or have to employ
sophisticated control circuit to minimize the bias-drift. The
solution to this problem is the use of Phase Modulator instead of
MZM. The advantage of using an optical phase modulator is, it
Fig 3: External Intensity Modulation using MZM
does not need a dc bias. So, it is free from dc bias-drifting
Another approach that uses an optical phase modulator to generate problem and provides a stable output.
a frequency-quadrupled electrical signal wave was proposed in
It was experimentally demonstrated that, when the electrical drive
2003[18]. This approach relies on Fabry-Pérot filter to select the
signal is tuned from 18.8–25 GHz, two bands of mm-wave signals
two second-order optical sidebands. An electrical signal with
from 37.6 to 50 GHz and from 75.2 to 100 GHz with high signal
frequency four times to that of the frequency of the electrical drive
quality are generated locally and remotely. This approach does not
signal was generated by beating the two second-order sidebands at
suffer from the direct current (dc) bias-drifting problem. The
a photo detector. An optical modulator with a maximum operating
generated signals had high-frequency stability and narrow
frequency of 15 GHz can generate an mm-wave signal up to 60
linewidth. It was verified that, after dispersion compensation, the
GHz. The system was complex and costly as it relies on the
integrity of the generated signals was maintained after
optical filter to select the two optical sidebands and generate
transmission over a 60-km SMF [24].
tunable mm-wave signals.
Other techniques to generate mm-wave signals in the optical
2.2.1 Intensity-Modulation-Based Approach domain include the photonic frequency upconversion by the
In conventional intensity modulation, the optical carrier is stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS)-based frequency tripling
modulated to generate a carrier and double sidebands (DSB). method [10], cross-gain modulation in a semiconductor optical
When the signal is sent over fibre, chromatic dispersion occurs amplifier (SOA) for frequency doubling [11]. An approach to
that causes each spectral component to experience different phase generate a frequency-tripled millimeter-wave (mm-wave) signal
shifts depending on the fibre link distance, modulation frequency, based on four-wave mixing (FWM) in a semiconductor optical
and the fibre dispersion parameter. In order to mitigate this amplifier (SOA) is experimentally demonstrated in [12].Other
problem, a single sideband (SSB) and an optical carrier methods include a multiband signal generation based on photonic
suppression (OCS) modulation technique has been studied [19]– frequency tripling technology for 60 GHz RoF systems [13] and
[22]. The OCS modulation scheme possesses the highest receiver mm-wave signals 32.4 GHz of sextuple microwave source
sensitivity, the highest spectral efficiency, lowest spectral frequency 5.4 GHz with high spectral purity generation using
occupancy, lowest bandwidth requirement for RF signal, electrical optical carrier suppression (OCS) technology [14]. In all the
amplifier (EA), and optical modulator as well as smallest power techniques [8-14], an ultra-narrowband optical filter was required,
penalty over long distance [23]. which made the system unstable and costly. To avoid using an
ultra-narrowband optical filter, a technique based on two
Figure 4 shows a system to generate and distribute wideband cascaded MZMs and a tunable electrical phase shifter for
tunable mm-wave signal using an optical external modulator and frequency quadrupling was proposed [15].
based on a wavelength-fixed optical filter. No tunable optical
filter is needed, which simplifies greatly the system 2.3 Up- and Down-conversion
implementation. MZM is biased to suppress the odd-order optical
sidebands. The wavelength-fixed optical notch filter is then used In this technique Intermediate frequency (IF) band signal is
to filter out the optical carrier to give two second-order optical transported over optical fibre instead of RF band signal [25][26].
sidebands. A mm-wave signal that has four times the frequency of IF-to-RF upconversion is accomplished at the BS level, in which
the microwave drive signal is generated by beating the two second the mm-wave carrier is generated by a local oscillator. The
order optical sidebands at a photodetector. A stable mm-wave transport of the IF-band optical signal is almost free from the fibre
signal tunable from 32 to 50 GHz is obtained by tuning the dispersion effect; however, the electrical frequency conversion
microwave drive signal from 8 to 12.5 GHz. The millimeter-wave between the IF-band and mm-wave requires frequency mixers and
signal is transmitted over a 25-km standard single-mode fiber [8]. a mm-wave local oscillator, resulting in the additional cost to the
BS. Another advantage of this technique is the fact that it occupies

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 www.ijcait.com International Journal of Computer Applications & Information Technology
Vol. I, Issue II, September 2012 (ISSN: 2278-7720)

small amount of bandwidth, which is especially beneficial when Table 1: Comparison of Millimeter-wave Generation
the system is combined with DWDM. A respective configuration Techniques
is shown in Figure 5.
Generation Description Advantage Disadvantage
Approach
Direct Using a mm- Simple Speed
Intensity wave carrier limited by LD
source to Efficient
modulation bandwidth
directly Tunable
modulate a with a mm High RIN
high-speed LD wave noise

source
External Externally Simple Fiber
modulation of configuration dispersion
Modulation a clean CW effect
High
laser source spectral Nonlinear
using MZM or purity response
EAM at mm-
Fig 5: Representative RoF link configurations for EOM, IF wave Low noise High power
modulated signal frequencies (depends on consumption,
mm wave
2.4 Optical Heterodyning High
driving insertion loss
In optical heterodyning technique, two or more optical signals are source)
simultaneously transmitted and are heterodyned in the receiver. High cost
An electrical beat note is then generated at the output of the Tunable
photodetector with a frequency corresponding to the wavelength with a
spacing of the two optical waves. Using optical heterodyning, microwave
very high frequencies can be generated, limited only by the
Source
photodetector bandwidth [27].
Up-and Transmission Direct IF High-freq.
Heterodyning yields high-detected power (higher link gain) and
Down- of IF band modulation EAM
higher carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR). Remote heterodyning has an
advantage concerning chromatic dispersion. If only one of the two conversion signal and IF-
to-RF Negligible
optical carriers is modulated with data, system sensitivity to
chromatic dispersion can be reduced greatly. This is not possible
upconversion chromatic
High cost
at the BS level dispersion
in direct intensity modulation based methods, where the two due to
optical sidebands end up both being modulated with data. effects additional
components
The major drawback of heterodyning is the strong influence of
laser phase noise since the phases of the two optical waves are not Optical Beating of two
correlated, which will be transferred to the generated mm-wave High Complicated
Heterodyning optical waves frequency light source
signals. Techniques used to reduce phase noise sensitivity include
of different generation
Optical Phase Locked Loops (OPLL) and Optical Injection wavelength at
Locking (OIL).The two techniques of OPLL and OIL could be capability
PD
combined in a single optical locking system, i.e. Optical Injection Full Laser phase
Phase Locked Loop (OIPLL) to further improve the signal quality modulation noise
[28]. depth
40 GHz mm-wave signals by employing optical heterodyne
techniques have been obtained in [29]. In this paper, a new mm- Fiber
wave WDM system based on ROF technology was proposed. In dispersion
this approach a multi-wavelength light source is obtained by effect free
supercontinuum (SC) technique. The generation of optical carriers
for 6-WDM channels and 40 GHz mm-wave signals by employing
optical heterodyne technique were experimentally demonstrated.
Low error rate transmission of 2.5 Gbit/s in WDM channels over a
distance of 25 km in a G.652 fibre was studied. 4. CONCLUSION
3. COMPARISON OF MM-WAVE The demands of broadband multimedia services for wireless users
are increasing day by day. Millimeter-wave ROF (Radio Over
GENERATION AND TECHNIQUES Fiber) technology is found the latest emerging technology to meet
with such demands. This paper basically provides a summary of
The advantages and the disadvantages of the four techniques
various techniques of mm-wave generation in ROF systems
described above are summarised in Table 1.
available to formulate the various shortcomings in the recent
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Vol. I, Issue II, September 2012 (ISSN: 2278-7720)

scenario of wireless communications. Recent advancements along

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