Abstract

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.

Emerging Optical Access Network Technologies for 5G Wireless [Invited]

Xiang Liu and Frank Effenberger
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 8(12) B70-B79 (2016)

Flexible resource provisioning of polarization independent coherent PONs based on non-orthogonal multiple access and multiCAP modulation

David Izquierdo, Jose A. Altabas, Miguel Barrio, Jesus Clemente, Pablo Millan, Samael Sarmiento, Jose A. Lazaro, Simon Rommel, Rafael Puerta, Juan J. Vegas-Olmos, Idelfonso Tafur Monroy, and Ignacio Garces
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 13(7) 140-146 (2021)

Analog fiber-wireless downlink transmission of IFoF/mmWave over in-field deployed legacy PON infrastructure for 5G fronthauling

K. Kanta, A. Pagano, E. Ruggeri, M. Agus, I. Stratakos, R. Mercinelli, C. Vagionas, P. Toumasis, G. Kalfas, G. Giannoulis, A. Miliou, G. Lentaris, D. Apostolopoulos, N. Pleros, D. Soudris, and H. Avramopoulos
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 12(10) D57-D65 (2020)

Low-Latency High-Efficiency Mobile Fronthaul With TDM-PON (Mobile-PON)

Siyu Zhou, Xiang Liu, Frank Effenberger, and Jonathan Chao
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 10(1) A20-A26 (2018)

MDM transmission of CAP-16 signals over 1.1- km anti-bending trench-assisted elliptical-core few-mode fiber in passive optical networks

Lulu Wang, Jianzhou Ai, Long Zhu, Andong Wang, Songnian Fu, Cheng Du, Qi Mo, and Jian Wang
Opt. Express 25(19) 22991-23002 (2017)