Novel scheme for eliminating phase noise in coherent optical communications

Digital-to-analog converters (DACs) are widely used in bandwidth-limited visible-light communication (VLC) systems for high spectral-efficiency multi-carrier signal generation. To reduce the implementation complexity of the transmitter, a digital 1-bit low-pass delta-sigma modulation (DSM)-enabled DAC-free filter-bank multi-carrier (FBMC) signal generation scheme is proposed and experimentally investigated in a red light-emitting diode-based VLC system. In this scheme, one field programmable gate array gigabit transceiver in combination with a low-pass filter is employed to realize the 609 MHz baseband FBMC signal generation. Besides, a low-complexity fast Walsh-Hadamard transform (FWHT)-based interleaved block precoding (IBP) technique is also proposed to reduce peak-to-average power ratio and achieve a uniform SNR profile, and then improve the bit error rate (BER) performance. The experimental results exhibit that the net data rate of 2.38-Gbit/s 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation-encoded FBMC signal, generated by the proposed scheme, can transmit 2.3-m free space with the BER less than 3.8×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3</sup> . With the help of the FWHT-IBP technique, about 2-dB improvement in receiver sensitivity is achieved. In addition, the BER performance can provide a slight improvement in the BER performance with the proposed scheme, compared to the conventional DAC-based FBMC-VLC.

Nowadays, the coherent optical communication system plays an important role in communication field because of large capability and bandwidth. A coherent optical communication, based on high-order modulation and digital signal processing technologies, consists of optical transmitters, optical fiber lines, optical amplifiers and optical receivers. In the high-speed coherent optical communication system, the phase noise from the transmitter laser and the local oscillator laser can significantly degrade the performance of the signal transmission and detection, especially for the systems using high-order modulation format, such as m-ary phase shift keying (mPSK) and m-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (m-QAM). Therefore, investigations on laser phase noise compensation algorithm based on digital signal processing technologies has become more and more significant. In this work, a multi-ring carrier phase recovery algorithm is developed for compensating the laser phase noise in optical fiber communication systems using high-order modulation formats. Degradations on the performance of communication systems due to the laser phase noise have been investigated. The system performance using the proposed algorithm and the conventional Viterbi-Viterbi algorithm were also evaluated in 9-channel and 15- channel, 32-Gbaud, Nyquist-spaced QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-QAM and 256-QAM coherent transmission systems with considering the impact of the laser phase noise. It is found that the phase noise leads to stricter constraints on the linewidths of transmitter-side and receiver-side lasers, and it can greatly degrade the achievable information rates in communication systems. Besides, compared to the conventional Viterbi-Viterbi algorithm, which is usually applied in the QPSK system, our proposed algorithm can also well mitigate the laser phase noise in 16-QAM, 64-QAM and 256-QAM optical communication systems.&#13;\n

In this paper, we investigate a SOA (semiconductor optical amplifier) preamplifier model by suitable choosing the material and device parameters for the SOA to reduce the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise at low range of 22.3 &#956;W with 0.1 mW input power for PIN receiver. Our proposed SOA optical preamplifier is found to be more relaxed from optical alignment & antireflection coating and eliminate the need of optical filter and give large tolerance of an input light wavelength more than 100 nm. Also we investigate the receiver sensitivity for different bit rate. We show that receiver sensitivity is -69.9 dBm at bit error rate (BER) of 4.6×10^-10 for 10 Gb/s and for the 40 Gb/s bit rate the improved receiver sensitivity is -19.2 dBm with PIN receiver. We also observe the sensitivity of -40.5 dBm at 40 Gb/s with DPSK (differential phase shift keying) receiver. Further the impact of amplified spontaneous emission power, gain variation with input light wavelength & optical gain for TE & TM modes with input power for PIN & DPSK receivers has been illustrated. We show that optical gain of SOA is polarization independent and remain constant 30.06 dB up to gain saturation. We also show that DPSK receiver suffer less from ASE noise. The variation of material loss, length & bias current for our SOA preamplifier to optimize the receiver sensitivity is further illustrated.

A mode-adapted semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) has been fabricated and packaged. At the gain peak, 1500 nm, the fiber to fiber gain was measured to be 32.5 dB. Statistics for eight packaged devices indicate that a fiber-to-fiber gain of 26.3 dB /spl plusmn/ 1.3 dB and a saturation output power of 12.4 dBm /spl plusmn/ 0.4 dBm are typical at a bias of 500 mA for /spl lambda/ = 1550 nm. Polarization sensitivity at 1550 nm was measured to be 1.1 dB /spl plusmn/ 0.4 dB and the transverse electric (TE) polarization state noise figure (NF) was determined to be 7.0 dB /spl plusmn/ 0.5 dB. The coupling loss was 1.3 dB /spl plusmn/ 0.1 dB per facet. This SOA, with a 1.3-nm filter, was used as an optical preamplifier in a 10-Gb/s return-to-zero (RZ) system testbed with a pseudorandom binary sequence (PRBS) of 2/sup 31/ -1. A 14.5-dB improvement in receiver sensitivity was observed at a bit error rate (BER) of 10/sup -11/.

The high speed rotation of state of polarization (RSOP) is a key issue for 16 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) coherent optical polarization division multiplexing (PDM) communication systems in strong lightning weather. To reduce the bit error rate (BER) caused by the high speed of RSOP, the historical information is first proposed to correct the demodulation process in coherent optical communication systems. By adding the time reverse error term into the cost function, a new equalization algorithm is proposed for coherent optical communication systems. Compared with the conventional Multi-modulus Algorithm (MMA), simulation results show that the average BER and steady-state error (SSE) of the new algorithm is reduced by 33.47% and 4.08%, respectively. Moreover, the average tolerance of RSOP of the new algorithm is increased by 28.57% compared with the MMA in 16 QAM coherent optical PDM communication systems.

Bit error rate (BER) performances of DPSK are researched for space uplink optical communication system. Considering further phase fluctuation effect based on the traditional atmospheric turbulence model, BER performance versus transmission power, zenith angle, frequency deviation, divergence angle and transmission diameter are discussed for different wavelengths. Simulations, especially, indicate that considering the phase fluctuation effect, BER performance is sensitive for low frequency deviation. It also confirms that wavelength of 1550nm on communication system is still a good choice for the better BER performance. This work is helpful for enhancing transmission quality and the design of space optical communication system.

BPSK (binary phase-shift keying) modulation with heterodyne demodulation is used in conjunction with convolutional codes to illustrate the feasibility of using coding to relax the laser linewidth requirements and improve the receiver sensitivity. The Viterbi algorithm is used, and the performance of the phase-locked loop in the carrier recovery circuit is studied. The results show that the relaxing factor of the laser linewidth can be larger than 12 at 10/sup -9/ bit error rate when a (2, 1) convolutional code with constraint length 11 is used. When the linewidth is fixed, this code can improve the receiver sensitivity by more than 9 dB.

In this study, we propose a novel wavelength shift keying (WSK) technique that is combined with the conventional intensity modulation scheme for the transmission of point-to-point bidirectional data at the rate of 10 Gbps in each direction. We observe that WSK technique has not been investigated for implementation in point-to-point free space optical (FSO) links. Therefore, to the best of our knowledge, our study is the first one to perform this investigation. Our proposed link uses WSK in the downlink direction while we re-use the optical carriers for the transmission of uplink data. The use of WSK in the downlink direction enables us to perform balanced detection at the receiver, resulting in 3 dB improvement in receiver sensitivity compared to simple direct detection. We present bit error rate (BER) results for the signals transmitted in both the directions under different turbulence conditions and FSO link lengths. It was observed that the downlink signals generally perform better compared to the uplink due to the use of balanced detection and higher intensity fluctuations induced over the re-used optical carrier transmitted in the uplink direction.Please check and confirm that all the author names (given name, family name) and initials are correctly identified. The author names and initials are CORRECT.

Guest Editorial

In optical communication systems, mitigating transmission errors caused by channel noise remains a critical challenge. This paper proposes bit repetition coding as a simple and effective method to enhance signal fidelity at the receiver. Our approach achieves a significant reduction in the bit error rate (BER), with simulations showing a decrease from 10&lt;sup&gt;–3&lt;/sup&gt; to 10&lt;sup&gt;–10&lt;/sup&gt; as the repetition count increases from 3 to 7. Furthermore, the clarity of the received signal improves consistently, with errors approaching zero at optimal repetition levels. This balance between simplicity and performance demonstrates the potential of repetition coding as a robust solution to transmission noise. Beyond its practical benefits, the study opens new pathways for designing resilient optical communication systems and highlights the relevance of repetition coding in improving both system reliability and efficiency. Future research is encouraged to explore its integration into next-generation optical networks.

The free space optical (FSO) communication system has attracted many researchers from different countries, owning to its advantages such as high security, high speed and anti-interference. Among all kinds of the channels of the FSO communication system, the atmosphere channel is very difficult to deal with for two typical disadvantages at least. The one is the scintillation of the optical carrier intensity caused by the atmosphere turbulence and the other is the multipath effect by the optical scattering. A lot of studies have shown that the MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology can overcome the scintillation of the optical carrier through the atmosphere effectively. So the background of this paper is a MIMO system which includes multiple optical transmitting antennas and multiple optical receiving antennas. A number of particles such as hazes, water droplets and aerosols exit in the atmosphere widely. When optical carrier meets these particles, the scattering phenomenon is inevitable, which leads to the multipath effect. As a result, a optical pulse transmitted by the optical transmitter becomes wider, to some extent, when it gets to the optical receiver due to the multipath effect. If the information transmission rate is quite low, there is less relationship between the multipath effect and the bit error rate (BER) of the communication system. Once the information transmission rate increases to a high level, the multipath effect will produce the problem called inter symbol inference (ISI) seriously and the bit error rate will increase severely. In order to take the advantage of the FSO communication system, the inter symbol inference problem must be solved. So it is necessary to use the channel equalization technology. This paper aims at deciding a equalizer and designing suitable equalization algorithm for a MIMO free space optical communication system to overcome the serious problem of bit error rate. The reliability and the efficiency of communication are two important indexes. For a MIMO communication system, there are two typical equalization methods. The first method, every receiving antenna has an independent equalizer without the information derived from the other receiving antennas. The second, the information derived from all of the receiving antennas mixes with each other, according to some definite rules, which is called space-time equalization. The former is discussed in this paper. The equalization algorithm concludes training mode and non training mode. The training mode needs training codes transmitted by the transmitter during the whole communication process and this mode reduces the communication efficiency more or less. In order to improve the communication efficiency, the blind equalization algorithm, a non training mode, is used to solve the parameter of the equalizer. In this paper, firstly, the atmosphere channel is described focusing on the scintillation and multipath effect of the optical carrier. Then, the structure of a equalizer of MIMO free space optical communication system is introduced. In the next part of this paper, the principle of the blind equalization algorithm is introduced. In addition, the simulation results are showed. In the end of this paper, the conclusions and the future work are discussed.

In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate an 8-Gbit/s quadrature-phase-shift-keying (QPSK) coherent underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) link under scattering conditions at 532 nm. At the transmitter, we generate the 532-nm QPSK signal using second-harmonic generation (SHG), where the 1064-nm signal modulated with four phase levels of an 8-phase-shift-keying (8-PSK) format is phase doubled to produce the 532-nm QPSK signal. To enhance the receiver sensitivity, we utilize a local oscillator (LO) at the receiver from an independent laser source. The received QPSK data beam is mixed with the independent LO for coherent heterodyne detection. Results show that the bit error rates (BERs) of the received QPSK signal can reach below the 7% forward error correction (FEC) limit under turbid water with attenuation lengths (γL) up to 7.4 and 6.1 for 2- and 8-Gbit/s QPSK, respectively. The corresponding receiver sensitivities are -34.0 and -28.4 dBm for 2- and 8-Gbit/s QPSK, respectively.

Atmospheric turbulence and pointing errors are two major factors affecting satellite-to-ground coherent optical communication links. This study considers the effects of power scintillation and phase jitter caused by atmospheric turbulence, as well as active mode compensation for wavefront phase distortion. Additionally, residual pointing errors due to platform micro-vibrations are taken into account, and a statistical channel model is derived under the combined effects of atmospheric turbulence and residual pointing errors during tracking and acquisition. Based on this model, a closed-form approximate expression for the average bit error rate (BER) of 16QAM satellite-to-ground coherent optical communication is derived using the Meijer-G function. The results show that the derived BER expression matches well with numerical integration results, confirming its accuracy and applicability under various link conditions. Through numerical simulations, the effects of residual pointing error variance, turbulence strength, satellite zenith angle, and transceiver antenna aperture on the performance of 16QAM satellite-to-ground coherent optical communication are evaluated. The findings offer valuable theoretical insights for the design and optimization of future satellite-to-ground 16QAM coherent optical communication systems.

A method is developed for calculating carrier-to-intermodulation product ratios for conventional modulators and for linearized modulators in which the third-order products are cancelled, and fifth-order products are dominant. Simple expressions are derived for the r.m.s. optical modulation index which optimizes system performance. The improvement in receiver sensitivity which can be achieved with linearized modulators is determined. For an AM-VSB system operating with carrier-to-noise ratios of 50 dB, linearized modulators are predicted to yield an improvement in receiver sensitivity of 8 dB. It is shown that for other SCM systems operating with CNRs of 25 dB or less, no performance improvement can be expected.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

This paper investigates the application of an erbium doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) in a coherent receiver using pulse position modulation (PPM) format. Such a combination can exploit the abundant monomode fibre bandwidth to offer improved sensitivity and improved multichannel selectivity through the exploitation of coherent transmission. Original theoretical results are presented for a system operating at a bit rate of 622 Mbit/s and a wavelength of 1.53 /spl mu/m. By using a suboptimal matched filter approach and assuming thermal noise dominant conditions, the results demonstrate that the system offers 7.5 dB sensitivity improvement over a homodyne PPM system and 9.4 dB improvement over PSK homodyne. The system investigated also offers a 10.4 dB sensitivity improvement over an equivalent optically preamplified direct detection (DD) PPM system. It was also demonstrated that by using an optical filter in order to reduce the ASE noise the improvement in receiver sensitivity was only 0.3 dB. This greatly reduces the requirement for optical filters in coherent systems and therefore the full bandwidth of the optical amplifiers can be used.