Demonstration of M-QAM OFDM bidirectional 60/25 GHz transmission over 10 km Fiber, 100 m FSO and 2 m radio seamless heterogeneous fronthaul link

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate the experimental transmission of 16- and 64- quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) Long Term Evolution - Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (LTE-OFDM) signals by using millimetre wave frequencies at 60 GHz and 25 GHz for downlink and uplink, respectively, over a heterogeneous optical fronthaul infrastructure. A directly modulated laser was employed for both links, which enables the cost-effective full-duplex system proposal. The bidirectional link consists of a 10 km of single mode fiber, a 100 m long free space optics channel and 2 m long wireless radio link, which brings flexibility for future wireless networks. The error vector magnitude (EVM) parameter is measured for a range of the received optical and electrical power as well as the signal-to-noise ratio. A comprehensive estimation of penalty factors in the different network segments is presented. The successful transmission over the whole proposed network with the EVM below the required limit of 9 % for 64-QAM with 20 MHz bandwidth is experimentally demonstrated for the received optical power of −2.7 dBm and −1 dBm for the downlink and uplink, respectively.