Optical fibre transmission has enabled greatly increased transmission rates, with 10 Gb/s common in local area networks. End users find wireless access highly convenient, however limited spectrum availability at microwave frequencies results in per-user transmission rates which are limited to much lower values, 500 Mb/s for 5 GHz band IEEE 802.11ac, for example. Extending the high data-rate capacity of optical fibre transmission to wireless devices, requires greatly increased carrier frequencies. This paper will describe how photonic techniques can enable ultra-high capacity wireless data distribution and transmission using signals at millimetre-wave and TeraHertz (THz) frequencies.

Data centers collect and process information with a capacity that has been increasing from year to year at an almost exponential pace. Traditional fiber/cable data center network interconnections suffer from bandwidth overload, as well as flexibility and scalability issues. Therefore, a technology-shift from the fiber and cable to wireless has already been initiated in order to meet the required data-rate, flexibility and scalability demands for next-generation data center network interconnects. In addition, the shift to wireless reduces the volume allocated to the cabling/fiber and increases the cooling efficiency. Optical wireless communication (OWC), or free space optics (FSO), is one of the most effective wireless technologies that could be used in future data centers and could provide ultra-high capacity, very high cyber security and minimum latency, due to the low index of refraction of air in comparison to fiber technologies. In this paper we review the main concepts and configurations for next generation OWC for data centers. Two families of technologies are reviewed: the first technology regards interconnects between rack units in the same rack and the second technology regards the data center network that connects the server top of rack (TOR) to the switch. A comparison between different network technologies is presented.

Space division multiplexing (SDM) has received a lot of attention in the past years, as it is seen as the final frontier of fiber optic capacity improvement for long haul transmission. Its use in access networks is even more interesting, due to the different design optimization goals in access versus transport. This paper explores some of the applications of SDM in access that have the potential for early adoption.

VCSEL-multimode optical fiber based links is the most successful optical technology in Data Centers. Laser-optimized multimode optical fibers, OM3 and OM4, have been the primary choice of physical media for 10 G serial, 4 x 10 G parallel, 10 x 10 G parallel, and 4 x 25 G parallel optical solutions in IEEE 802.3 standards. As the transition of high-end servers from 10 Gb/s to 40 Gb/s is driving the aggregation of speeds to 40 Gb/s now, and to 100 Gb/s and 400 Gb/s in near future, industry experts are coming together in IEEE 802.3bs 400 Gb/s study group and preliminary discussion of Terabit transmission for datacom applications has also been commenced. To meet the requirement of speed, capacity, density, power consumption and cost for next generation datacom applications, optical fiber design concepts beyond the standard OM3 and OM4 MMFs have a revived research and developmental interest, for example, wide band multimode optical fiber using multiple dopants for coarse wavelength division multiplexing; multicore multimode optical fiber using plural multimode cores in a single fiber strand to improve spatial density; and perhaps 50 Gb/s per lane and few mode fiber in spatial division multiplexing for ultimate capacity increase in far future. This talk reviews the multitude of fiber optic media being developed in the industry to address the upcoming challenges of datacom growth. We conclude that multimode transmission using low cost VCSEL technology will continue to be a viable solution for datacom applications.

This paper introduces software-defined, millimeter Wave (mm-Wave) networks with Radio over Fiber (RoF) for the delivery of gigabit connectivity required to develop fifth generation (5G) mobile. This network will enable an effective open access system allowing providers to manage and lease the infrastructure to service providers through unbundling new business models. Exploiting the inherited benefits of RoF, complete base station functionalities are centralized at the edges of the metro and aggregation network, leaving remote radio heads (RRHs) with only tunable filtering and amplification. A Software Defined Network (SDN) Central Controller (SCC) is responsible for managing the resource across several mm-Wave Radio Access Networks (RANs) providing a global view of the several network segments. This ensures flexible resource allocation for reduced overall latency and increased throughput. The SDN based mm-Wave RAN also allows for inter edge node communication. Therefore, certain packets can be routed between different RANs supported by the same edge node, reducing latency. System level simulations of the complete network have shown significant improvement of the overall throughput and SINR for wireless users by providing effective resource allocation and coordination among interfering cells. A new Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) algorithm exploiting the benefits of the SCC global network view for reduced delay in control message exchange is presented, accounting for a minimum packet delay and limited Channel State Information (CSI) in a Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A), Cloud RAN (CRAN) configuration. The algorithm does not require detailed CSI feedback from UEs but it rather considers UE location (determined by the eNB) as the required parameter. UE throughput in the target sector is represented using a Cumulative Distributive Function (CDF). The drawn characteristics suggest that there is a significant 60% improvement in UE cell edge throughput following the application, in the coordinating cells, of the new CoMP algorithm. Results also show a further improvement of 36% in cell edge UE throughput when eNBs are centralized in a CRAN backhaul architecture. The SINR distribution of UEs in the cooperating cells has also been evaluated using a box plot. As expected, UEs with CoMP perform better demonstrating an increase of over 2 dB at the median between the transmission scenarios.

In this paper, a Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) based photonic antenna suitable for RoF applications is presented. The millimeter-wave design is based on a diplexer, two Chebyshev bandpass filters, one for uplink (61,7GHz to 62,7 GHz) and one for downlink (59,3 GHz to 60,3 GHz) and one common 8x8 Slot array antenna, integrated on the same substrate. E/M simulations of a fully integrated planar RF Front End provide very good results, both in diplexer and filters and in antenna characteristics. Finally, a consideration regarding transition requirements for integration with a coplanar waveguide (CPW) photodiode is being presented.

Deep integrated optical access networks target to provide great capillarity and multiple ONTs for cost- and energy-efficient pervasive connectivity seamless supporting integrated wireless. Several key optical technologies are herein reported supporting integrated deep optical access: Bundled radio-over-fiber transmission is proposed and demonstrated for the provision of quintuple-play services achieving 125 km SSMF optical reach. Bend-insensitive fiber in-building distribution is also proposed and demonstrated supporting joint legacy coaxial transmission. Multimode POF is also proposed and demonstrated suitable for joint in-building distribution of MATV and SMATV broadcasting signals. Optical comb technology us is also demonstrated suitable for mm-wave radio generation of multiband OFDM wireless signals. Finally, multicore fiber transmission is also proposed and demonstrated suitable for the transmission of LTE and WIMAX in wireless fronthaul applications in a minimized inter-core crosstalk penalty configuration.

A key figure of merit for analog optical links for radio-over-fiber is the spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR). In most links, shot noise associated with the residual optical carrier dominates SFDR. Class AB techniques have been used previously in order to improve the shot-noise limited SFDR for intensity-modulated links, but this has been for Mach- Zehnder modulators. In order to approach the theoretical improvement of 12 dB in SFDR for the class B scheme, an ideal linear static characteristic for the modulator is required; hence we propose the use of ring-resonator modulators which have been proven to approach quasi-linear voltage-light characteristics.

In this paper, we describe seamless networks based on millimeter and terahertz wave radio links using waveform transfer over optical fibers. Coherent optical transceivers with digital signal processing provide transmission impairment compensation in both optical and radio sections, where devices for the signal processing are implemented at edges of the links. Waveforms, which include the modulation formats, the symbol rates, etc., are maintained in the entire links, to reduce transmission latency and energy consumption in the network.

We have proposed a laser-phase-fluctuation-insensitive optical coherent detection scheme assisted by a digital signal processing (DSP) technique for radio-over-fiber (RoF) systems. In this system, a “two-tone” local light is used for an individual optical coherent detection of both the carrier and the modulated components of RoF signal, where a frequency separation of two-tone local light is the same as that of RoF signal. To distinguish the carrier and the modulated components in the process of optical coherent detection, they have to be separated in the optical domain. In this paper, we proposed a new optical coherent detection scheme with an “offset-frequency-spaced two-tone” local light, which is also in principle insensitive to the laser phase fluctuation and is assisted by the DSP technique. In the proposed scheme, it is not required to separate the carrier and the modulated components in the optical domain because they can be easily separated in the electrical domain after the photodetection. Therefore, the system configuration is expected to be simpler than that in the previous scheme. First, we explain the principle of our new proposal and experimentally demonstrate the data recovery. Then, the influence of the frequency detuning between photo-detected modulated and unmodulated signals is discussed. Moreover, the transmission performance with an error vector magnitude (EVM) is also evaluated for the optical coherent detection of a 10-Gbaud quadrature-phase-shift-keying RoF signal after a 20-km-long standard single-mode fiber transmission. As a result, it is shown that the EVM of less than 12.4 %rms is achieved.

Radio-over-fiber systems employing remote antenna units (RAUs) based on coherent optical heterodyne detection of two phase uncorrelated lasers and envelope detection have been recently demonstrated. By using two uncorrelated lasers, this system concept allows simple implementation that can additionally be improved, if thermally uncooled lasers are used. Although such asynchronous receiver design is mildly affected by the laser phase noise, it suffers from the wavelength drift that occurs between the uncooled laser sources. Also, there are performance penalties due to high laser line-width when complex modulation formats are used for transmission. In this work, we analyze the performance of heterodyne based optical receivers, using OOK and multilevel modulation.

We propose an all-optical virtual private network (VPN) system in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based long reach PON (LR-PON). In the optical access network field, technologies based on fundamental upstream (U/S) and downstream (D/S) have been actively researched to accommodate explosion of data capacity. However, data transmission among the end users which is arisen from cloud computing, file-sharing and interactive game takes a large weight inside of internet traffic. Moreover, this traffic is predicted to increase more if Internet of Things (IoT) services are activated. In a conventional PON, VPN data is transmitted through ONU-OLT-ONU via U/S and D/S carriers. It leads to waste of bandwidth and energy due to O-E-O conversion in the OLT and round-trip propagation between OLT and remote node (RN). Also, it causes inevitable load to the OLT for electrical buffer, scheduling and routing. The network inefficiency becomes more critical in a LR-PON which has been researched as an effort to reduce CAPEX and OPEX through metro-access consolidation. In the proposed system, the VPN data is separated from conventional U/S and re-modulated on the D/S carrier by using RSOA in the ONUs to avoid bandwidth consumption of U/S and D/S unlike in previously reported system. Moreover, the transmitted VPN data is re-directed to the ONUs by wavelength selective reflector device in the RN without passing through the OLT. Experimental demonstration for the VPN communication system in an OFDM based LR-PON has been verified.

In order to increase the data rates of Multi-Gbit/s links based on large core step index (SI) plastic optical fibers (POF), different modulation scenes have been proposed. Another option is to use multiple optical carriers for parallel transmission of communication channels over the same fiber. Some designs to reach data rates of 14.77 Gb/s in 50 m, with 4 channels have been developed by off line processing. In this work, designs to test the potential of real Multi- Gbit/s transmission systems using commercial products are reported. Special care in designing low insertion loss multiplexers and demultiplexers is carried out to allow for greener solutions in terms of power consumption.

Metro-access network is a newly emerged network which combines the traditional separated metro network and access network together into a converged system. It serves more users in a larger geographical area, meanwhile maintaining a simplified network hierarchy which inherits the low cost, large bandwidth, and high reliability of PON. In this paper, a novel remote node for metro-access converged network is proposed, which supports multi-type PON colorlessly, meanwhile maintains single specification for all subscribers. In addition, it saves nearly half of the spectrum resource in the metro part.

A novel architecture of bidirectional wavelength division multiplexed passive optical network (WDM-PON), based on forward error correcting (FEC) scheme, has been proposed and analyzed theoretically. This configuration is made economical by employing injection locked Fabry-Perot laser diode (FPLD) for direct modulation at transmitter end and reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) as remodulator at receiver end. Reed-Solomon (RS) codec is preferred in the design to comprehend the FEC scheme. The RS (255, 251) codec is realized by field-programmablegate- array (FPGA) with the help of VERILOG programming. Excellent transmission performances of 10 Gbps datasignal over maximum of 20 km SMF in downlink and uplink are obtained by the low bit error rate (BER) values and significant eye diagrams at BER analyzer.

After the East Japan Great Earthquake, the construction of resilient network has been strongly required. On the other hand, the technical convergence with wired and wireless plays an important role to achieve the next generation access networks beyond bandwidth of current optical access. In this paper, we discuss next generation resilient access networks, handling the download of huge data, images, and videos, as well as to upload of a large number of sensor data, any time and anywhere.

Wireless systems, which do not depend on physical networks of wires, play an important role in developing resilient telecommunication networks for massive disasters. We built a wireless mesh network test bed to demonstrate disasterresistant telecommunication technologies and also conducted open experiments in 2013. An overview of the system and experimental results including recent related experiments started in 2014 are reported.

If a large scale disaster similar to the Great East Japan Earthquake 2011 happens, some areas may be isolated from the communications network. Recently, unmanned aircraft system (UAS) based wireless relay communication has been attracting much attention since it is able to quickly re-establish the connection between isolated areas and the network. However, the channel between ground station (GS) and unmanned aircraft (UA) is unreliable due to UA’s swing motion and as consequence, the relay communication quality degrades. In this paper, we introduce space-time block coded (STBC) amplify-and-forward (AF) relay for UAS based wireless relay communication to improve relay communication quality. A group of UAs forms single frequency network (SFN) to perform STBC-AF cooperative relay. In STBC-AF relay, only conjugate operation, block exchange and amplifying are required at UAs. Therefore, STBC-AF relay improves the relay communication quality while alleviating the complexity problem at UAs. It is shown by computer simulation that STBC-AF relay can achieve better throughput performance than conventional AF relay.

Over the past decade, location based services (LBS) have found their wide applications in indoor environments, such as large shopping malls, hospitals, warehouses, airports, etc. Current technologies provide wide choices of available solutions, which include Radio-frequency identification (RFID), Ultra wideband (UWB), wireless local area network (WLAN) and Bluetooth. With the rapid development of light-emitting-diodes (LED) technology, visible light communications (VLC) also bring a practical approach to LBS. As visible light has a better immunity against multipath effect than radio waves, higher positioning accuracy is achieved. LEDs are utilized both for illumination and positioning purpose to realize relatively lower infrastructure cost. In this paper, an indoor positioning system using VLC is proposed, with LEDs as transmitters and photo diodes as receivers. The algorithm for estimation is based on received-signalstrength (RSS) information collected from photo diodes and trilateration technique. By appropriately making use of the characteristics of receiver movements and the property of trilateration, estimation on three-dimensional (3-D) coordinates is attained. Filtering technique is applied to enable tracking capability of the algorithm, and a higher accuracy is reached compare to raw estimates. Gaussian mixture Sigma-point particle filter (GM-SPPF) is proposed for this 3-D system, which introduces the notion of Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). The number of particles in the filter is reduced by approximating the probability distribution with Gaussian components.

Solid state lighting systems typically use multiple Light Emitting Diode (LED) die within a single lamp, and multiple lamps within a coverage space. This infrastructure forms the transmitters for Visible Light Communications (VLC), and the availability of low-cost detector arrays offers the possibility of building Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) transmission systems. Different approaches to optical MIMO are being investigated as part of a UK government funded research programme, ‘Ultra-Parallel Visible Light Communications’ (UPVLC). In this paper we present a brief review of the area and report results from systems that use integrated subsystems developed as part of the project. The scalability of these approaches and future directions will also be discussed.

In this paper, we investigate channel modeling for visible light communications (VLC) using non-sequential ray tracing simulation tools. We create three dimensional realistic simulation environments to depict indoor scenarios specifying the geometry of the environment, the objects inside, the reflection characteristics of the surface materials as well as the characteristics of the transmitter and receivers, i.e., LED sources and photodioes. Through ray tracing simulations, we compute the received optical power and the delay of direct/indirect rays which are then used to obtain the channel impulse response (CIR). Following this methodology, we present CIRs for a number of indoor environments including empty/furnished rectangular rooms with different sizes and wall/object materials (e.g., plaster, gloss paint, wood, aluminum metal, glass) assuming deployment of both single and multiple LED transmitters. We further quantify multipath channel parameters such as delay spread and channel DC gain for each configuration and provide insights into the effects of indoor environment parameters (e.g., size, wall/object materials, etc.), transmitter/receiver specifications (e.g., single vs. multiple transmitters, location, rotation etc.) on the channel.

The need for ubiquitous broadband connectivity is continually growing, however, radio spectrum is increasingly scarce and limited by interference. In addition, the energy efficiency of many radio transmitters is low and most input energy is converted to heat. A widely overlooked resource for positioning and broadband access is optical wireless communication reusing existing illumination installations. As many of the 14 billion incandescent bulbs in use worldwide are converted to energy efficient LED lighting, a unique opportunity exists to augment them with visible light communications (VLC) and visible light positioning (VLP). VLC- and VLP- enabled LED lighting is not only energy efficient but enables a host of new use cases such as location-aware ubiquitous high-speed wireless communication links. This talk presents the recent work of the Free-space Optical Communication Algorithms Laboratory (FOCAL) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada in developing novel signaling and indoor localization techniques using illumination devices. Developments in the signaling design for VLC systems will be presented along with several prototype VLC communication systems. Novel approaches to the integration of VLC networks with power line communications (PLC) are discussed. The role of visible light communications and ranging for automotive safety will also be highlighted. Several approaches to indoor positioning using illumination devices and simple smartphone-based receivers will be presented. Finally, a vision for VLC and VLP technologies will be presented along with our ongoing research directions.

Utilizing the modulation capability of LEDs, there have been many studies about convergence technology to combine illumination and communication. The visible light communication (VLC) system has several advantages such as high security, immunity to RF interference and lower additional cost than comparing to LEDs just for illumination. However, modulation bandwidth of LEDs is not enough for various wireless communication systems. Since the commercial LEDs are designed only for lighting systems; we need an effort to enhance the modulation characteristics of LEDs. When the area of LED is increased, internal junction capacitance of LED is also increased depending on the area of LEDs and then the RC delay time of LED is increased. As a result, the modulation bandwidth of LEDs is limited by large RC delay time. In addition, frequency response of commercial white LED is degraded by the slow response time of the used yellow phosphor. Thus, modulation bandwidth of VLC system is limited to several MHz which is not enough to accommodate high data rate transmission. In this paper, we designed equalization circuit using RLC component for compensating the white LEDs frequency response. Also, we used blue filtering to improve frequency response of white LEDs, which is degraded by yellow phosphorescent component. Power loss by optical filtering and distance is compensated by convex lens. Consequently, we extend the modulation bandwidth of VLC system from 3 MHz to more than 180 MHz, and it allows NRZ-OOK data transmission up to 400 Mbps at 50 cm.

White light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are widely used for lighting due to their energy efficiency, eco-friendly, and small size than previously light sources such as incandescent, fluorescent bulbs and so on. Optical wireless visible light communication (OWVLC) based on LED merges lighting and communications in applications such as indoor lighting, traffic signals, vehicles, and underwater communications because LED can be easily modulated. However, physical bandwidth of LED is limited about several MHz by slow time constant of the phosphor and characteristics of device. Therefore, using the simplest modulation format which is non-return-zero on-off-keying (NRZ-OOK), the data rate reaches only to dozens Mbit/s. Thus, to improve the transmission capacity, optical filtering and pre-, post-equalizer are adapted. Also, high-speed wireless connectivity is implemented using spectrally efficient modulation methods: orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) or discrete multi-tone (DMT). However, these modulation methods need additional digital signal processing such as FFT and IFFT, thus complexity of transmitter and receiver is increasing. To reduce the complexity of transmitter and receiver, we proposed a novel modulation scheme which is named differential pulse amplitude modulation. The proposed modulation scheme transmits different NRZ-OOK signals with same amplitude and unit time delay using each LED chip, respectively. The ‘N’ parallel signals from LEDs are overlapped and directly detected at optical receiver. Received signal is demodulated by power difference between unit time slots. The proposed scheme can overcome the bandwidth limitation of LEDs and data rate can be improved according to number of LEDs without complex digital signal processing.

This paper evaluates the performance of space shift keying (SSK) free-space optical communication (FSO) over moderate and strong turbulent channels. It has been shown previously that repetition codes (RCs) using intensity modulation with direct detection techniques are superior to SSK system for a spectral efficiency of 1 bit/s/Hz. It is shown in this study that SSK outperforms RCs using M-ary pulse amplitude modulation for spectral efficiencies of 3 bits/s/Hz or larger. Analytical expressions for the bit error rate for the SSK system under study are derived and extensive simulation results corroborate the correctness of the conducted analysis.

A bidirectional radio over fiber (ROF) transport system in combination with optical free space transmission schemes based on WDM, external light injection and optical add-drop multiplexing techniques is proposed and demonstrated. A diverging lens at the fiber end and a parabolic reflector at the receiver end are designed to employ optical free space transmission scheme in the configuration which transmits data-stream of 1~10 Gbps at 12.5 GHz. Excellent BER values and impressive eye diagrams for both down/uplink have shown that our proposed system is convenient and suitable for 80 km optical and 10 m optical free space transmission.

Compositional fluctuations of the N in GaInNAs results in QD-like fluctuations in the conduction band minimum. The GaInNAs SOA gain is significantly broadened by adding the gain of both QW and QD-like fluctuations, providing a < 18 dB gain over 107 nm bandwidth cross both C and L bands in NG-PON2 applications.

During recent years, there has been rapid development in optical networks. This includes not only fiber optical networks but also free space optical networks. The free space optical networks can be divided into indoor and outdoor ones. The indoor free space optical networks have been experiencing dramatic progress in the last years, allowed by the newest IEEE norm 802.15.7, which enabled development of different types of transmitter receivers, modulation formats, etc. The team of authors is dealing with software design of segment optical transmitters for an indoor free space optical network based on the multi-mode optical 50/125 or 62.5/125 μm fiber. Simulated data are then evaluated from the point of view of optical intensity uniform distribution and space spot light size radiating from segment optical transmitter.

Nowadays, the conventional light sources are replaced progressively evolving LED (Light Emitting Diode) for their deficient properties. This technology recorded dynamic growth mainly due to effective research in increasing power density and choice the color shade on good color rendering CRI (Color Rendering Index). This extending the zone of used LEDs. Development of lighting technology by means of white power LEDs provided impulse to the idea of the development of optical wireless data networks based on optical radiation in the visible region of the spectrum VLC (Visible Light Communications). In the last years being recorded a turnover of research from transmission of information via optical fiber to the transmission of information through wireless networks. At the same time the concept of information transmission by indirect sight between transmitter and receiver NLOS (Non Line of Sight) is changing. Line of research focuses mainly on the direct line of sight LOS (Line of Sight). This is due to the development of the semiconductor lighting through the white power LED. This is connected with the idea of using them as a transmitter for communication purposes. This article deals with software design of optical link for indoor wireless optical network in LightTools software. Optimal optical source was designed for communication using LED as the first. For the proposed type of LEDs sources were used different shapes and distances distribution between LEDs in a single cell at the designed optical transmitter.

Secure information encryption via acousto-optic (AO) chaos with profiled optical beams indicates substantially better performance in terms of system robustness. This paper examines encryption of static and time-varying (video) images onto AO chaotic carriers using Gaussian-profile beams with diffracted data numerically generated using transfer functions. The use of profiled beams leads to considerable improvement in the encrypted signal. While static image encryption exhibits parameter tolerances within about ±10% for uniform optical beams, profiled beams reduce the tolerance to less than 1%, thereby vastly improving both the overall security of the transmitted information as well as the quality of the image retrieval.