TY - JOUR

T1 - Seamlessly Converged Fiber-Wireless Access Networks with Dynamic Sub-wavelength Switching and Tunable Photonic mmWave Generation

AU - Vallejo Castro, Luis

AU - Gonem, Omaro

AU - Jin, Wei

AU - Giddings, Roger

AU - Chen, Lin

AU - Huang, Yi

AU - Yi, Xingwen

AU - Faruk, Md Saifuddin

AU - Tang, Jianming

PY - 2024/11/15

Y1 - 2024/11/15

N2 - For implementing next-generation radio accessnetworks (NG-RANs) supporting services/applications in thebeyond-5G (B5G) era, seamless fiber-wireless networkconvergence is vital for enabling heterogeneous signals of variouscharacteristics to continuously flow between the optical andelectrical domains, i.e., the baseband unit (BBU) and userequipment (UE), without optical-electrical-optical (O-E-O)conversions or digital signal processing (DSP) at any intermediatenodes. To address such challenges, this paper proposes andexperimentally demonstrates, for the first time, a cost-effectivefiber-wireless converged flexible and dynamic access networkbased on intensity modulation and direct detection (IM-DD). Thedemonstrated network utilizes O-E-O conversion-free Soft-reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (Soft-ROADMs) atremote nodes to dynamically establish connections between theBBU and the remote radio heads (RRHs) at the sub-wavelengthlevel. In addition, free-running laser-enabled photonic millimeter-wave (mmWave) signal generation and passive electrical envelopedetector-enabled mmWave down-conversion are also used,respectively, at the RRHs and UEs to achieve mmWave frequencytunability and adaptive wireless network coverage. The networkperformance and optimum network configuration areexperimentally explored extensively in a fiber-wireless convergedaccess network with 3×1.333 Gbps dynamic BBU-UE connectionsover a 10 km IM-DD fiber link and a 5 m, 38 GHz mmWavewireless link. The results show that wide mmWave frequencytuning ranges and adaptive mmWave coverages are achievable byjust adjusting the RRH-laser frequency and output powers.

AB - For implementing next-generation radio accessnetworks (NG-RANs) supporting services/applications in thebeyond-5G (B5G) era, seamless fiber-wireless networkconvergence is vital for enabling heterogeneous signals of variouscharacteristics to continuously flow between the optical andelectrical domains, i.e., the baseband unit (BBU) and userequipment (UE), without optical-electrical-optical (O-E-O)conversions or digital signal processing (DSP) at any intermediatenodes. To address such challenges, this paper proposes andexperimentally demonstrates, for the first time, a cost-effectivefiber-wireless converged flexible and dynamic access networkbased on intensity modulation and direct detection (IM-DD). Thedemonstrated network utilizes O-E-O conversion-free Soft-reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (Soft-ROADMs) atremote nodes to dynamically establish connections between theBBU and the remote radio heads (RRHs) at the sub-wavelengthlevel. In addition, free-running laser-enabled photonic millimeter-wave (mmWave) signal generation and passive electrical envelopedetector-enabled mmWave down-conversion are also used,respectively, at the RRHs and UEs to achieve mmWave frequencytunability and adaptive wireless network coverage. The networkperformance and optimum network configuration areexperimentally explored extensively in a fiber-wireless convergedaccess network with 3×1.333 Gbps dynamic BBU-UE connectionsover a 10 km IM-DD fiber link and a 5 m, 38 GHz mmWavewireless link. The results show that wide mmWave frequencytuning ranges and adaptive mmWave coverages are achievable byjust adjusting the RRH-laser frequency and output powers.

U2 - 10.1109/JLT.2024.3499379

DO - 10.1109/JLT.2024.3499379

M3 - Article

JO - Journal of Lightwave Technology

JF - Journal of Lightwave Technology

SN - 0733-8724

ER -