An Integrated Fiber-FSO-5G NR Sub-THz Link With 86.112 Gbps High Aggregate Data Rates

Abstract

An integrated fiber-free-space optical (FSO)-fifth-generation (5G) new radio (NR) sub-THz link through a cross-media of 20 km single-mode fiber (SMF), 500 m optical wireless, and 0.5 m RF wireless is proposed and successfully implemented. 5G NR communication operates effectively with four sub-THz frequencies of 150, 175, 200, and 225 GHz. Each sub-THz frequency carries a 21.528-Gbps 32-QAM-OFDM signal. By transmitting four 5G sub-THz signals, an integrated fiber-FSO-wireless link with high aggregate data rates of 86.112 Gbps (21.528 Gbps × 4) is realized. It is an innovative link to extend 5G communications to 86.112 Gbps data rates over long-haul wired/wireless transmission. Satisfactorily low bit error rate (<3.8 × 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">−3</sup> forward error correction limit) and error vector magnitude (<10%) show that this newly demonstrated fiber-FSO-wireless link is promising for 5G NR communication in sub-THz band. It exhibits an excellent fiber-FSO-5G NR sub-THz link with the vantages of high accumulative data rates, long-haul wired-wireless transmission, and low complexity.