Abstract
Analog fronthauling is currently promoted as a bandwidth and energy-efficient solution that can meet the requirements of the Fifth Generation (5G) vision for low latency, high data rates and energy efficiency. In this paper, we propose an analog optical fronthaul 5G architecture, fully aligned with the emerging Centralized-Radio Access Network (C-RAN) concept. The proposed architecture exploits the wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technique and multicarrier intermediate-frequency-over-fiber (IFoF) signal generation per wavelength in order to satisfy the demanding needs of hotspot areas. Particularly, the fronthaul link employs photonic integrated circuit (PIC)-based WDM optical transmitters (Txs) at the baseband unit (BBU), while novel reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) cascaded in an optical bus are used at the remote radio head (RRH) site, to facilitate reconfigurable wavelength switching functionalities up to 4 wavelengths. An aggregate capacity of 96 Gb/s has been reported by exploiting two WDM links carrying multi-IF band orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals at a baud rate of 0.5 Gbd with sub-carrier (SC) modulation of 64-QAM. All signals exhibited error vector magnitude (EVM) values within the acceptable 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) limits of 8%. The longest reach to place the BBU away from the hotspot was also investigated, revealing acceptable EVM performance for fiber lengths up to 4.8 km.
Highlights
Broadband mobile connectivity is rapidly evolving towards the fifth generation (5G) era, defining a new set of requirements beyond the capabilities of the legacy long-term evolution (LTE) based fourth generation (4G) networks [1]
The other four curves correspond to the four wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) channels and show the received optical power (ROP) required at the PDs of the fourth remote radio head (RRH) in order to achieve error vector magnitude (EVM) of 8% for the worst performing SC modulated with 64-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM)
We presented an analog optical fronthaul 5G architecture employing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based
Summary
Broadband mobile connectivity is rapidly evolving towards the fifth generation (5G) era, defining a new set of requirements beyond the capabilities of the legacy long-term evolution (LTE) based fourth generation (4G) networks [1]. Considering that this fronthaul architecture targets small-scale private. Considering that this fronthaul architecture targets small-scale private networks, wavelength-specific WDM TxRxs are preferred to be employed over wavelength-tunable solutions, since for this scale, they allow for simpler and more cost efficient implementations. The main target of this work is to meet the 5G KPIs, while simultaneously complying with the physical (PHY) layer performance metrics of the underlying hardware and maintaining a low cost and power consumption envelope, as presented
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