JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS, VOLUME 19, ISSUE 2, APRIL 2013

18

Performance analysis of Coherent optical OFDM (CO-OFDM) system with dispersion compensation
Laith Ali Abdul-Rahaim, Ibraheem Abdullah and Mayasah Razzaq
Abstract This paper addresses theoretically some issues related to Coherent Optical OFDM (CO-OFDM) system and identifies some parameters that affect its performance. The performance of a long-haul CO-OFDM system at 40 Gb/s is simulated taking into account the effect of fiber chromatic dispersion. The results show that the dispersion compensation helps to extend the link length for about 60 times of that of the non-compensated system. Index Terms Coherent Optical OFDM, Dispersion, Dispersion Compensation.

I- Introduction
OFDM is a special form of a broader class of multicarrier modulation (MCM) [1]. With the advancement of powerful silicon DSP technology, OFDM has triumphed in a broad range of applications in the RF domain from digital audio/video broadcasting (DAB/DVB) to wireless local area networks (LANs)[2]. Recently it has been shown that OFDM can be applied in optical long haul transmission systems and had many advantages over conventional single-carrier modulation format [3]. First, the frequency spectra of OFDM subcarriers are partially overlapped, resulting in high spectral efficiency. Second, the OFDM system can mitigate frequency-selective fading by using a sufficiently low symbol rate in combination with channel-coding and power loading. Third, the signal processing in the OFDM transceiver takes advantage of the efficient algorithm of fast Fourier transform (FFT)/inverse FFT (IFFT) leading to low computation complexity[4]. Recently, an equivalent optical-domain multicarrier format, called coherent optical OFDM (COOFDM) has been proposed for long haul transmission [3]. In the mean time, incoherent optical OFDM (IOOFDM) has been proposed independently and has been shown to have similar dispersion tolerance with a much simpler detection scheme [3,4]. However, the CO-OFDM is superior to IO-OFDM in spectral and power efficiency. On the other hand, OFDM is generally susceptible to phase noise, and nonlinearity owing to high peak to average power ratio [1]. Therefore, it is critical to investigate the CO-OFDM system transmission including fiber nonlinearity, in order to ascertain its suitability for optical transmission[4]. In this paper, we show the performance of COOFDM at 40 Gb/s with optical dispersion compensation instead of electrical dispersion compensation. We used the symmetrical dispersion compensation scheme. We find that the system performance is enhanced even when the fiber nonlinearity is considered.

optical fiber link, (iv) Optical-to-RF (OTR) downconverter, and (v) RF (or baseband) OFDM receiver.

Fig. 1. Schematic of a generic O-OFDM communication system. (i) RF(or baseband) OFDM transmitter Starting from a bit sequence that has to be sent, an OFDM transmitter has to parallelize the serial bit sequence with as many outputs as subcarriers are set up. The parallel sequences have to be mapped with the corresponding modulation (in amplitude or phase) per subcarrier[5], and the digital time domain signal s(t) is obtained by using IFFT [3]: (1) (2) (3)
Where is the information symbol at the subcarrier, is the frequency of the subcarrier, is the number of OFDM subcarriers, , , and are the OFDM symbol period, guard interval length and observation period respectively. The digital time domain signal s(t) is then inserted with a guard interval and subsequently converted into real time waveform through digital-to-analogue converter (DAC), and the sideband signal is filtered using a low-pass filter (LPF).

II- CO-OFDM
A generic CO-OFDM system can be divided into five functional blocks (i) RF(or baseband) OFDM transmitter, (ii) RF-to-optical (RTO) up-converter, (iii)

JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS, VOLUME 19, ISSUE 2, APRIL 2013

19

where n(w) is the wavelength dependent refractive index, w the angular frequency and c is the speed of light. The dependency of (w) can be seen as a polynomial using a Taylor series expansion as is shown in .
(5)

where is defined as the nth derivative of respect to the angular frequency

Fig. 2. Block Diagram of an OFDM transmitter

with
(6)

(ii)

RF-to-optical (RTO) up-converter

In the direct upconversion architecture in Figure. 3, the optical transmitter uses an optical I/Q modulator that comprises two MZMs to up-convert the real/imaginary parts of the complex OFDM signal s(t) in Eq. (2.1) from the RF domain to the optical domain; that is, each MZM is respectively driven by the real or the imaginary part of the s(t)[2].

where [1/km] denotes the constant phase shift, [ps/km] corresponds to the speed at which the envelope of the pulse propagates, [ps2/km] is called group velocity dispersion (GVD) and represents the change in group velocity with angular frequency w and finally the parameter [ps3/km] is referred to the change of GVD with angular frequency. In fiber-optic communication it is common to use the dispersion (D) and dispersion slope (S), which defines the change in GVD and GVD slope with respect to a reference wavelength !, respectively. They are related to "2 and "3 as.
(7)

Where D is expressed in [ps/nm/km] and S is expressed in [ps2/nm/km],and its value in standard SMF is around 16~17 ps/(km-nm).

(iv) Fig. 3 Architecture of Direct up-converter (iii) Fiber Link As an optical signal propagates down a fiber, it experiences several degradation effects; these degradations limit the maximum link distance and data rate. The objective of any optical communication system is to control and/or mitigate such degradations to achieve as better performance as possible. Attenuation and Chromatic dispersion are the most common types of linear degradations[6].In this paper, for the sake of simplicity, we analyze the system for which the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) is near zero Attenuation is the loss of optical power as light travels along the fiber. Erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA) is used to compensate the fiber attenuation. Chromatic dispersion in a single-mode fiber refers to the pulse broadening induced through the wavelength dependence of the fibers refractive index, and it results for optical transmission systems in inter-symbol interference (ISI). This restricts the dispersion limited reach, i.e. the feasible transmission distance without the need for regeneration or dispersion compensation. In this section the background of chromatic dispersion and the impact on optical transmission links is explained. The speed at which the phase of any one frequency component of a wave travels along an optical fiber is equal to,[7]
(4)

Optical-to-RF (OTR) down-converter

In the direct down-conversion architecture, the OFDM optical receiver uses two pairs of balanced receivers and an optical 90-degree hybrid to perform optical I/Q detection to bring the OFDM signal back to the baseband.

Fig. 4 Architecture of Direct down-converter. (v) RF (or baseband) OFDM receiver. In the OFDM receiver, the block stages diagram is similar to the transmitter but in the reverse way. After the signal detection, by a photodiode, the first stage is the filtering process of the in-phase and quadrature components of the received signal, to avoid aliasing problems. Then the OFDM signal is sampled by ADCs, The resulting signal is parallelized to calculate the discrete Fourier transform (DFT). The final block is the

JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS, VOLUME 19, ISSUE 2, APRIL 2013

20

serialization of the information carried out in each subchannel to obtain the final bit sequence.

(10) Where #SMF is the attenuation of the transmission fiber, LSMF is the length of the transmission fiber. For the gain of the amplifier succeeding the DCF a similar equation holds on. The linear dispersive compensation length of the DCF should be chosen to compensate completely the dispersion of the transmission fiber: Where LSMF is the length of the transmission fiber, DSMF is the dispersion of the transmission fiber, DDCF is the dispersion of the DCF. In the symmetrical compensation case, fiber placement follows the sequence of: DCF, transmission fiber, transmission fiber, DCF [9] ( see figure 6) .

Fig.5. Block Diagram of an OFDM Receiver eReceiver. III- Dispersion Compensation Fiber (DCF) To support a high-capacity dense wavelengthdivision-multiplexing (DWDM) transmission, the embedded standard single-mode fiber (SMF) should be upgraded to overcome the dispersion limit. For this purpose, some dispersion compensation scheme must be employed periodically at the amplification stages. There are several different methods that can be used to compensate for dispersion, including dispersion compensating fiber (DCF), chirped Bragg gratings and optical phase conjugation. In this paper, dispersion compensating fibers are used to compensate dispersion. The use of dispersion compensating fiber is an efficient way to upgrade installed links made of standard single mode fiber [8]. Conventional dispersion compensating fibers have a high negative dispersion -70 to -90 ps/nm.km, so a relatively short length of DCF can compensate much longer lengths of SMF. Tailoring the fibers refractive index profile with the addition of germanium to the core generates the high negative dispersion of DCF. DCF typically has a much narrower core than SMF. This causes the optical signal to be more tightly confined and accentuates problems caused by nonlinear effects. In pre-compensating case, DCF is precompensating the accumulated dispersion of the transmission fiber as shown in figure.6. The gain G of the amplifier following the DCF is balancing the fiber loss of the DCF and can be determined by: (8) Where #DCF is the attenuation of the dispersion fiber, LDCF is the length of the transmission fiber. For the gain of the amplifier succeeding the transmission fiber is a similar equation holds. By placing one DCF with negative dispersion after a SMF with positive dispersion, the net dispersion will be zero as (9) Where LSMF is the length of the transmission fiber, DSMF is the dispersion of the transmission fiber, DDCF is the dispersion of the DCF. In post-compensating case, the dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) is postcompensating the dispersion of the transmission fiber. The gain of the amplifier, G, following the SMF compensates the fiber loss of the SMF and can be determined by :

(a) Post-compensating scheme.

(b) post-compensating scheme.

(c) symmetrical compensation scheme. Fig.6 Compensation Schemes. IV- Simulation Setup The CO-OFDM system under investigation uses direct up/down conversion method. Unless otherwise stated, the parameters values used in the simulation are listed in Table I
Table I. Parameters values used in simulation.
Bit Rate 40 Gb/s RF OFDM Transmitter and Receiver Modulation type QPSK Bits per Symbol 2 Number of FFT points 1024 Number of OFDM subcariers , Nsc 512 Receiver PDs dark current 10 nA Receiver PDs responsivity 1 Receiver PDs thermal noise 110-22 W/Hz RTO and OTR Parameters (I) CW Laser and LO Frequency 193.1 Thz Power 0 dBm Linewidth 150 khz (II) MZM MZMs extinction ratio 60 dB MZMs insertion loss 1 dB MZMs switching bias voltage 4V

JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS, VOLUME 19, ISSUE 2, APRIL 2013

21 Transmitter optical booster gain Power launched to the fiber Fiber, 120 km span length Length Dispersion parameter D Dispersion slope S Effective area n2 EDFA gain DCF parameters Length Dispersion parameter D Dispersion slope S Effective area DGD parameter n2 EDFA gain 11 dB -11 dBm 50 km 0.2 dB/km 17 ps/(nm.km) 0.075ps/(km.nm2) 80 m2 2.6e (-20) m2/W 10 dB 10 km 0.5 dB/km -85 ps/(nm.km) -0.3 ps/(km.nm2) 30 m2 0.1 ps/ 2.6e (-20) m2/W 5 dB

Back to back

V-Results
o show how chromatic dispersion, CD, degrade the system performance, the CO-OFDM system shown in previous section is simulated with the parameters values listed in Table. 1. The receiver constellation diagrams and their corresponding Q factor values for different fiber lengths are obtained for the case when no dispersion compensation is used in the system (i.e., when the effects of CD are totally present in the system without any mitigation for it). Figure.7 shows the obtained constellations with their Q factor values. Note that a Q factor=4.438 can be obtained after 25 km link length. Figure. 8 shows the received constellation diagrams and their corresponding Q factor values for different transmission distances for the same CO-OFDM system after compensating the effects of CD. A symmetrical dispersion compensation scheme is used as it is found in previous works like [8] to be the optimal type of dispersion compensation scheme. It is shown that a Q=10.569 is obtained when the link length is 1560 km. Comparing this fiber length with that of the non compensated system (25km), one finds that the effects of CD has profound degradation results on system performance, and dispersion compensation helps to extend the link length for about 60 times of that of the non-compensated system.

20 km (11.791)

25 km ( Q factor=4.438)
Fig. 7. Received constellation diagrams and Q factor values for different link lengths without dispersion compensation

Transmitted 1320 km ( Q factor= 19.113)

JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS, VOLUME 19, ISSUE 2, APRIL 2013

22 [1] W. Shieh, H. Bao, and Y. TangCoherent optical OFDM: theory and design Optical Society of America, 2008. [2] W. Shieh and I. Djordjevic, OFDM for optical communictions, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2010. [3] H. Bao and W. Shieh Transmission simulation of coherent optical OFDM signals in WDM systems Optical Society of America,2007. [4] H. Bao and W. Shieh Transmission of Wavelength-DivisionMultiplexed Channels With Coherent Optical OFDMIEEE,2007. [5] N. Toporcer Adaptive Loading Algorithms for optical OFDM transmission systems MSC.Thesis , 2011. [6] M. Alaulddin Al-Qadi Performance Simulation Of Coherent Optical OFDM Communication System MSC. Thesis, Al-Nahrain University, 2011. [7] D. van den Borne, Robust optical transmission systems: modulation and equalization, PhD. Thesis, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 2008. [8] D. Dhawan and N. Gupta Optimization Of Fiber Based Dispersion Compensation In RZ AND NRZ Data Modulation Formats Journal of Engineering Science and Technology Vol. 6, No. 6 (2011) 651 663. [9] A. Raheem Farhan Spectral Efficiency Improvement of the Optical Communication Systems MSC. Thesis, University of Technology,2012. Laith Ali Abdul-Rahaim (Member IEEE) was born in Babylon-1972, Iraq. He received the B.Sc. degree in Electronics and Communications Department from the University of Baghdad (1995)Iraq, M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the University of Technology-Iraq in 2001 and 2007 respectively. Since 2003, he has been with the University of BabylonIraq, where he is now head of Electrical Engineering Department. His research interests include MC-CDMA, OFDM, MIMO-OFDM, CDMA, Space Time Coding, Modulation Technique, Image processing. 1560 km (Q factor= 10.569)

1440 km (Q factor=16.0201)

Fig. 8. Received constellation diagrams and Q factor values for different link lengths with dispersion compensation.

Ibraheem Abdullah was born in Babylon-1978, Iraq. He received the B.Sc. degree in Optical Electronics and Laser Engineering Department from the University of Al-Nahrien (1999)-Iraq, M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the University of Technology-Iraq in 2001 and 2006 respectively. Since 2003, he has been with the University of Babylon-Iraq, where he is now head of Electrical Engineering Department. His research interests include Optical communications, OFDM, UWB, WDM System.

Fig. 9. Q-factor as a function of launched optical power for COOFDM systems operating with 960 km, 1200 km, 1440 km, dispersion-compensated link.

Mayasah Razzaq Abdali was born in Babylon-1988, Iraq. She received the B.Sc. degree in Electrical Department from the University of Babylon (2010)-Iraq. She is now M.Sc. Student in Electronics and Communications engineering at Babylon University. Her research interests include OFDM, Coherent Optical OFDM, WDM System.

Figure 9. shows the results of Q-factor for CO-OFDM operating with 960 km,1200km and1440km dispersioncompensated link and for different values for the optical power launched from the transmitter to the fiber. As shown in the figure, the CO-OFDM system exhibits excellent performance in the launched optical power.

VI-Conclusion The proposed system shows a better system performance in compared without employing dispersion compensation. The results show that the dispersion compensation helps to extend the link length for about 60 times of that of the non compensated system.
VII- References