High-capacity Mobile Fronthaul Research Articles

10.51-Tbit/s multi-channel IF-over-fiber transmission with SDM/WDM/SCM for beyond-5G mobile fronthaul accommodating ultra-high-density antennas

In beyond-5G and 6G mobile communication systems, it is expected that massive numbers of antennas are densely deployed to provide a stable and high-speed communication environment. To efficiently accommodate high-density antennas, high-capacity mobile fronthaul (MFH) is also required. Intermediate-frequency-over-fiber (IFoF) is considered as one of the attractive solutions for realizing high-capacity MFH due to its high spectral efficiency and multi-channel transmission capability. In this paper, we demonstrate the highest-capacity IFoF transmission with combinations of space division multiplexing, wavelength division multiplexing, and subcarrier multiplexing; 4608 channels of 64-quadrature amplitude modulation orthogonal frequency division multiplexing signals with a total net bit rate of 10.51 Tbit/s (4608×380.16MHz/ch×6bit/s/Hz) are successfully transmitted over a 10.1-km uncoupled 12-core multi-core fiber.

High Capacity Converged Passive Optical Network and RoF-Based 5G+ Fronthaul Using 4-PAM and NOMA-CAP Signals

Network architectural changes to satisfy all the 5G+ mobile network specifications and requirements are necessary due to the popularization of streaming and cloud applications on omnipresent portable devices. The combination of massive installation of micro-cell antenna sites with the cloud access radio network (C-RAN) architecture has recently been nominated as a promising technology for high-capacity mobile fronthaul links, albeit at a high cost. An alternative approach for next-generation fronthaul networks is to utilize the already deployed passive optical networks (PONs) where wireless and wired services may coexist in a converged manner. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) modulation with multi-band carrierless amplitude and phase modulation (NOMA-CAP) has recently been investigated as a promising 5G+ modulation format candidate to increase the capacity and flexibility of future mobile networks. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the convergence of a NOMA-CAP wireless waveform with a single-carrier wired signal in a PON scenario using radio-over-fiber (RoF) technology. Specifically, fifteen NOMA-CAP bands, with two NOMA power levels to double the capacity, transmit 15 Gb/s multiplexed with a digital 10 Gb/s four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) signal for downlink application. Two converged system implementations have been considered, first using electrical frequency division multiplexing (EFDM) and secondly using the hybrid EFDM-wavelength division multiplexing (EFDM-WDM). Successful transmission through a 25 km span of standard single-mode fiber is achieved with negligible transmission penalty for both proposed converged solutions.

Experimental Assessment of 10 Gbps 5G Multicarrier Waveforms for High-Layer Split U-DWDM-PON-Based Fronthaul

The current constant growth in mobile networks’ traffic demands caused by the popularization of cloud and streaming services on personal devices, requires architectural changes so as to fulfill all new 5G mobile network requirements. Cloud access radio network (C-RAN) architecture in combination with the massive deployment of small cell antenna sites have recently been proposed as a promising solution but will be demanding for high-capacity mobile fronthaul links. An efficient way for performing that connectivity is to make use of the dense wavelength multiplexing passive optical network (DWDM-PON) infrastructure. In this context, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has been extensively explored as a potential candidate. Nevertheless, the main drawback of OFDM is its high out-of-band radiation. In order to overcome that drawback, new 5G multicarrier waveforms (FBMC, UFMC, and GFDM) have recently been proposed. In this paper, we experimentally assess and compare 10 Gbps 32-QAM-OFDM/FBMC/UFMC/GFDM system performance for high-layer split ultra-DWDM-PON-based fronthaul using a radio-over-fiber technique. The performance has been done in terms of spectral efficiency, peak-to-average power ratio, spectral density, and receiver sensitivity. In particular, intensity-modulation with direct-detection and quasi-coherent-detection have been considered. In order to improve the multicarrier system energy efficiency, the effect of using a hard clipping technique over transmitted signals is also studied. Finally, we evaluated the crosstalk interference between two adjacent channels of the same modulation scheme, as a function of their electrical frequency span for downlink application.

Broadband IF-Over-Fiber Transmission With Parallel IM/PM Transmitter Overcoming Dispersion-Induced RF Power Fading for High-Capacity Mobile Fronthaul Links

We demonstrate a broadband and long-distance intermediate frequency-over-fiber (IFoF) transmission scheme employing a transmitter composed of parallel intensity/phase (IM/PM) modulators with appropriate bandwidth allocations to IM and PM. Due to the proposed scheme, we can eliminate all the null frequencies caused by dispersion-induced RF power fading, which, in turn, enables us to significantly increase the available bandwidth. In addition, our system does not require any synchronization between IM and PM, which reduces complexity compared to conventional parallel transmitter architecture. We successfully transmitted 20 × 360 MHz filtered orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexed signals corresponding to a common public radio interface equivalent data rate of 524.28 Gbps over a 30- and 40-km single-mode fiber satisfying the 8% threshold for the error-vector magnitude values for all the subcarriers. These results show that our proposed IFoF transmission scheme is scalable to long-distance mobile fronthaul links for 5G and beyond.

1.032-Tb/s CPRI-Equivalent Rate IF-Over-Fiber Transmission Using a Parallel IM/PM Transmitter for High-Capacity Mobile Fronthaul Links

We report high-capacity intermediate-frequency-over-fiber (IFoF) transmission using parallel intensity/phase modulators (IM/PM). Thanks to the parallel IM/PM transmitter, we can avoid all the null frequencies caused by dispersion-induced RF power fading. Compared to other techniques to avoid RF power fading, the parallel IM/PM transmitter offers a simple solution because it does not rely on any sophisticated digital signal processing. We transmitted 14 $\times$ 1.2-GHz orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexed signals over a 20-km single-mode fiber using the parallel IM/PM transmitter and achieved a Common Public Radio Interface equivalent data rate of 1.032 Tb/s. Thus, an IFoF system with the parallel IM/PM transmitter shows great potential to be applied to high-capacity mobile fronthaul links in the upcoming fifth-generation mobile system and beyond.

Demonstration of Mobile Fronthaul Test Bed Based on RoF Technology Supporting Two Frequency Assignments and 2 × 2 MIMO Antennas

We demonstrate a next-generation high-capacity mobile fronthaul based on radio over fiber (RoF) technology, which links between a digital unit and a radio unit supporting two frequency assignments and 2 × 2 multiple input, multiple output antennas. To confirm the technical feasibility of a mobile fronthaul, we experimentally investigate its down- and uplink end-to-end performances including the optical and radio frequency (RF) signal path. Frequency-dependent performance deviations, error vector magnitude variations, overall system performance variations caused by optical to electrical conversion, and intermediate frequency to RF conversions are examined. Experimental verifications on multiple LTE uplink signals are performed for the first time. We also demonstrate several commercial mobile Internet services, YouTube video streaming, and file transfers using off-the-shelf mobile devices, through a mobile fronthaul based on RoF.

Wavelength Resource Sharing in Bidirectional Optical Mobile Fronthaul

In this paper, we propose high-capacity spectrally-efficient optical mobile fronthaul (MFH) architectures featuring wavelength resource sharing, where multiple cell sites share one dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) channel instead of occupying a number of separated DWDM channels. In the downlink (DL), subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) is integrated with DWDM passive optical network. The key technical innovation lies in the reception of uplink (UL) signals being optically aggregated with ultrasmall spacing. We introduce two novel schemes for spectrally-efficient and low-complexity upstream transmissions. The first method is based on SCM in remote radio heads (RRHs) and coherent detection in baseband units (BBUs), achieving channel spacing of as small as 100 MHz. For the first time, successful coherent reception of LTE signal, whose symbol rate (15 ksps) is much smaller than the laser linewidth, is achieved by pairing a radio frequency pilot tone from each RRH. Bidirectional transmission of four 20-MHz 16-QAM-OFDM LTE-like signals with 100-MHz spacing aggregated on one wavelength is demonstrated. For the second proposed UL scheme, we report a low-complexity ultradense WDM over DWDM allocation with 1-GHz wavelength spacing and novel phase-noise-insensitive heterodyne detection using MHz-linewidth lasers and an off-the-shelf envelope detector. We experimentally demonstrate the transmission and simple detection of multichannel 100/200 Mb/s OOK or 200 Mb/s 16-QAM-OFDM signals with 1-GHz spacing over 30-km standard single mode fiber using 5-MHz-linewidth lasers. By enabling ultrahigh spectral efficiency, high receiver sensitivity, and low-complexity, the proposed approach achieves a significant breakthrough for future high-capacity mobile fronthaul systems.