Analysis of OFDM signal through optical fiber

for Radio-over-Fiber transmission

Dhivagar.B1, Ganesh Madhan.M2 and Xavier Fernando3
Department of Electronics Engineering
1,2
Madras Institute of Technology Campus, Anna University
Chromepet, Chennai 600 044, INDIA
3
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ryerson University,CANADA.
Email:1bd20033310@yahoo.co.in , 2mganesh@annauniv.edu, 3fernando@ee.ryerson.ca
distance as well as long-haul transmission at very high data
Abstract— Radio-over-Fiber (RoF) has emerged as a rate. This improves the system flexibility and provides a very
potential candidate for the transport of microwave, large coverage area without increasing the cost and complexity
cellular and wireless broadband signals for coverage of the system very much. Recently, it has been proved that
extension, antenna remoting and other high speed OFDM is better compared to the conventional single carrier
applications. OFDM has found its way as wireless modulation for long haul optical transmission.[2 – 4]. The
standard for LAN and MAN systems due to its spectral critical advantage of using OFDM in optical fiber
efficiency and interference rejection capability. In this communications includes better spectral efficiency,
paper, a single mode fiber optic link is modeled for the elimination of sub channel and symbol interference using the
transmission of OFDM based WLAN signals. A rate fast Fourier transform (FFT) for modulation and
equation model was utilized for modeling the 1550 nm demodulation, which does not require any equalization and
DFB laser source based transmitter. The BER dispersion tolerance [4]. Singh and Alphones [5] have
the theoretically studied the effect of channel noise, multipath
fiber optic link is examined both in the forward and delay spread, power clipping, and synchronization on the
reverse direction. Further the effect of wireless channel transmission of OFDM signals.
along with the fiber dispersion is also determined.
Djordjevic and Bane Vasic [4] have shown by simulations
Index Terms— DFB Laser, OFDM, Radio-over-Fiber (RoF), that , QPSK OOFDM combined with LDPC coding provides a
Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), Fiber optic link coding gain improvement of more than 2 dB over LDPC coded
RZ-OOK at BER of 10-8, and at the same time allows
transmitting a 40 Gb/s signal over a 10 GHz bandwidth. They
I. INTRODUCTION have used a 101.9Km of Standard SMF and 18.1km of DCF
RADIO-OVER-FIBER (ROF) technology is one of the for their study. A new scheme of Coherent Optical
recent advancements in optical communication, finding transmission of OFDM (CO-OFDM) signals has been
applications in cable TV networks, base station links for developed and its superior performance has been evaluated by
mobile communication and antenna remoting [1]. By using simulating a 10 Gb/s transmission over 4800 Km single mode
RoF, the next generation communication systems can utilize WDM fiber link [6]. In the literature, long distance
the high capacity of optical networks along with the mobility transmission of signals using OFDM along with coding, to
of wireless networks. mitigate dispersion and burst errors, have been reported. But in
the case of WLAN signals transmission, the main
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) concentration is for short distance transmission alone. In this
technique distributes the data over a large number of carriers paper, we investigate the impact of fiber dispersion on the
that are spaced apart at precise frequencies with overlapping transmission performance of OFDM based IEEE
bands. The use of FFT for modulation provides orthogonality 802.11.g,WLAN signal for different distances. Further, we
to the sub-carriers, which prevents the demodulators from include the impairments due to wireless channel also, in both
seeing frequencies other than their own. Hence OFDM has the forward and reverse directions A 1550nm DFB laser diode is
best spectral efficiency, resiliency to RF interference, and considered for the transmitter followed by a single mode fiber.
lower multi-path distortion. LAN, which uses OFDM is the We have choose a DFB laser, since it provide better
current trend for indoor wideband communication with a performance compared to Fabry Perot and VCSEL’s in analog
drawback of limited coverage area of few meters, but supports optical links [7]. The laser diode is modeled using the standard
high data rate. Hence by incorporating OFDM along with the single mode rate equation model, which were solved under
optical fiber, the RoF system can be used for both short static and dynamic conditions. The fiber was modeled as a
digital FIR filter using a transfer function approach. Optical Wireless
Link Link
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, we
describe the configuration of the whole RoF system. In Section
III, the WLAN system modeling and other specifications of the OFDM DFB Photo RF OFDM
OFDM modulation scheme are discussed. Section IV dicusses Transmitter Laser Single Detector Transmitter Receiver
Mode Fiber
the link , which includes the laser, fiber and wireless channel
modeling. In section V we have shown the simulation results,
which show the performance of RoF link with WLAN
(a)
modulation scheme.
Optical Wireless
Link Link

II. ROF SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

The RoF systems designed for analysis were simulated for OFDM Photo DFB RF OFDM
different channel configurations. The configuration for the Receiver Detector Single Laser Receiver Transmitter
RoF system with only the optical link is shown in Fig.1. In this Mode Fiber
configuration the OFDM signal generated out of the WLAN
transmitter at 2.4GHz was directly given to the DFB Laser at
desired signal level with proper biasing. The optical signal out (b)
of the laser is fed to a single mode fiber followed by a photo
detector. The received RF signal will be demodulated and Fig.2. RoF system configuration. (a) System for Forward
decoded to get back the data. This configuration can be used channel (b) System for reverse channel
for analyzing the performance of the optical link alone for the
OFDM input. In Fig.2 (b) the wireless link is followed by the optical link,
forms the reverse channel. Here the signal out of the OFDM
Single Mode transmitter was passed through the wireless channel first and
Fiber then given to the laser, after passing through a RF receiver.
Then the optical signal was passed through the fiber to the
OFDM DFB Photo OFDM desired location and given to the OFDM receiver. For each
Transmitter Laser Detector Receiver
case the system was simulated block by block separately.
AWGN
III. WLAN SYSTEM MODELING
The basic building blocks for a OFDM transmitter and
Fig.1. RoF system with optical link alone receiver [8,9] are shown in Fig.3. First the user data is
converted into symbols by m-ary signaling. These symbols are
In the practical scenario, the RoF system will also be having the converted into frames of N parallel rows. Also pilot symbol
a wireless channel in between. Rayleigh and Rician fading is added at the starting of each frame, which is used at the
channels are useful models of real-world phenomena in receiver for synchronization and also for channel equalization.
wireless communications. These phenomena include multipath The N sub symbols are then sent to an Inverse Fast Fourier
scattering effects, time dispersion, and Doppler shifts that arise Transform (IFFT) block that performs an N-point Inverse Fast
from relative motion between the transmitter and receiver. Fourier Transform. Hence, the original input data is treated by
OFDM as though it is in the frequency-domain. The output of
The system configurations for both reverse and forward the Inverse Fast Fourier Transform block is N time-domain
channels of the RoF system are shown in Fig.2. In Fig.2 (a) the samples. This complex signal is transmitted on orthogonal
optical link is followed by the wireless link, which is the case
carriers at RF frequency.
of forward channel. Here the signal out of the OFDM
.
transmitter was given to the laser at a significant power level.
Binary Frame Cyclic RF
Then the output was passed through the fiber to the desired Data
Mapping
Formatting
IFFT
Prefixing Transmitter
location. An RF transmitter was used for amplifying the signal
to required power level and given to an antenna for wireless
transmission. Frame
Binary Deformatting Channel RF
FFT Synchronizer
Data & Demapping Equalization Receiver

Fig.3. OFDM basic building blocks

 In the receiver the pilot symbol is used for synchronization
at the starting stage and the same symbol is used for
equalization at the later stage. All the other processes at the
receiver are the reverse process of the transmitter.
The mathematical equivalent of OFDM signal is expressed
as
N −1
v(t ) = ∑ X k e j 2πkt / T 0≤t <T (1)
k =0
where, Xk are the data symbols and T is the OFDM symbol
time. The sub-carrier spacing of 1/T makes them orthogonal
over each symbol period.
To avoid intersymbol interference in multipath fading
channels, a guard interval of length Tg is inserted prior to the
OFDM block. During this interval, a cyclic prefix is
transmitted such that the signal in the interval –Tg ≤ t < 0
equals the signal in the interval (T–Tg) ≤ t < T. The OFDM
signal with cyclic prefix is thus
N −1
v(t ) = ∑ X k e j 2πkt / T − Tg ≤ t < T (2)
k =0
.
A. Offset Estimation
Synchronization has been a major research topic in OFDM
systems, because OFDM systems are sensitive to symbol
timing error and carrier frequency offset. Various existing
synchronization algorithms can be classified into blind and
pilot-aided methods. If a preamble is used to estimate symbol
and frequency offset, the Corresponding synchronization
schemes are considered to be pilot-aided. On the other hands,
if a preamble or pilot symbols are not used, the corresponding
estimation algorithms are classified as blind. Blind methods
are severely affected by channel condition, and have large
complexity. For these reasons, pilot-aided synchronization
methods are commonly used in OFDM applications.
Among pilot-aided algorithms, the method proposed by
Schmidl [10] is most popular in which a preamble containing
the two same halves is used to estimate the symbol timing and
frequency offset. The Schmidl’s estimator gives simple and
robust estimates for symbol timing and carrier frequency
offset. This method also provides a very wide acquisition
range for the carrier frequency offset. However, the timing
metric of Schmidl’s method have plateau, which causes large
variance of the timing estimate. To reduce the uncertainty due
to the timing metric, Minn [11] proposed a method as
modification to Schmidl’s technique. The feature of Minn’s
preamble gives sharper timing metric and smaller variance
than Schmidl’s. Whereas Minn’s estimator provides accurate
estimation, the variance of estimator is quite large in ISI
channel.
Here we use a preamble and timing synchronization method
for OFDM timing estimation [12] as modification to
Schmidl’s, which was proposed by Byungjoon Park to avoid
the timing metric plateau. Since the basic structure of the
estimator is similar to that of Schmidl’s, it maintains the
advantages of Schmidl’s estimator. Moreover, the used method
can make more sharp timing metric than Schmidl’s and
Minn’s. To estimate frequency offset using the same preamble,
the basic form of preamble used is same to the Schmidl’s
preamble. The samples of the preamble used are designed to
be of the form
P = [APro BPro A∗Pro B∗Pro] (3)
Where, APro represents samples of length N/4 generated by
IFFT of PN sequence, and A∗Pro means conjugate of APro. BPro
is designed to be symmetric with APro. This pattern of symbol
can be easily obtained by using the properties of FFT. The
training symbol is made by transmitting a real-valued PN
sequence on the even frequencies, whereas zeros are used on
the odd frequencies. This means that at each even frequency
one of the points of a BPSK constellation scaled by 3 for even
signal energy, is transmitted. Then the result of IFFT will
produce the time-domain sequence as shown in equation 3.
To estimate frequency offset using the same preamble, the
basic form of used preamble is same to the Schmidl’s
preamble. Therefore, Schmidl’s frequency offset estimation
algorithm can be also applied to the used preamble. The
difference is that BPro is symmetric with APro in the first-half.
By using this symmetry, impulse-like timing metric is
obtained.
2
P( d )
M Pr o = (4)
( R( d ) )
2
where
N /2
P(d ) = ∑ r (d − k ).r (d + k ) (5)
k =0
and
N /2
R (d ) = ∑ r ( d + k )
2
(6)
k =0
B. Channel Estimation and Equalization
Channel estimation in OFDM is mostly done using Least
Square estimation in which a pilot symbol is transmitted in
every frame starting which is used to estimate the channel. As
in OFDM, we are available with the frequency domains of the
pilot, it is very easy to estimate the channel as a filter just by
division as shown in equation (7). The format of pilot data in a
frame is shown in the Fig.4.
 The baseband data, inphase signal, Quadrature phase signal
and 2.4 GHz RF signal are generated from the standard
1 frame equations using Matlab® and shown in Fig 5

2
1
(a)

v
0
-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
-7
x 10
1

0 (b)

v
Fig.4. Pilot positions in an OFDM frame -1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
-7
x 10
The dark spots in Fig.4 represents the pilot data. If we
1
consider the frequency domain signal in the transmitter, for the
(c)
pilot as P and at the receiver as Q. Now the signal transmitted 0

v
out is p and received is q. These can be related to the channel -1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
h as -7
x 10
1
q = p⊗h (7)
0
(d)
and
v

Q = PH (8) -1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time ---------------> (s) -7
x 10
where, H is the Fourier Transform of the channel which can
be estimated as
Fig.5. Signals generated in the OFDM Tx (a) Binary Data
Hˆ = Q / P (9) (b) Inphase Signal in Tx
(c) Quadrature signal in Tx (d) RF signal in Tx
and the other data following the pilot can be equalized using
Xˆ = Y / Hˆ (10)
IV. LINK MODELING
where, X̂ is the estimated frequency domain signal.
The specifications followed for the OFDM transmitter and A. DFB Laser Modeling
receiver as per IEEE 802.11g [13] are shown in Table I. Laser modeling was done to perform accurate transmitter
simulation. DFB lasers are better suited for analog modulation
Table I of RF signals Normally, a single equation representing the
Specifications of the OFDM modulation scheme power dependence of modulation current along with
modulation index is used by many authors [14]. But detailed
Carrier Frequency 2.4 GHz rate equations are required to model the laser diode with its
Data Rate 24Mbps inherent non linearity to have a better understanding of the
laser operation at RF frequencies. Laser rate equations are a
Mapping Scheme 16-QAM system of three non linear differential equations, one for the
Sub carriers 64 electron density N (t), the photon density S (t) and the phase Φ
(t). The relationship between optical output power and diode
Guard Interval 16
drive current can be determined by examining the rate
Zero Padding 12 equations that govern the interaction of photons and electrons
in the active region. The three rate equations for a DFB Laser
Channel Bandwidth 20 MHz
are given as [15]

dN I g v [ N − No ] S (11)
= − AN − BN 2 − CN 3 − n g
dt eV 1+ ε S
 dS  g n vg [ N − N o ] S 1 
18 15
R x 10 x 10
= Γ − S + 3 6
dt  1+ ε S τ p  V
(12) X: 0.05
Y:2.913e+018
dφ 1
= α Γ g n v g [ N − N th ] S Carrier Density
dt 2 (13)

P h o t o n D e n s it y - - > ( 1 / c m 3 )
C a r r i e r D e n s it y - - > ( 1 / c m 3 )
2 4

where, N,S and I represents Electron density, Photon density

and Injection current respectively.
The parameters used in these equations and their values are Photon Density
1 2
given in the Table II. X: 0.05
Y: 2.023e+015

Table II
Parameters for DFB Laser [16] 0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09
0
0.1
Current --> (A)

PARAMETERS SYMBOL VALUE Fig.6. Static characteristics of DFB Laser

Non-Radiative
A 1 x 108 0.06
Recombination Factor
0.05 (a)
Radiative Recombination

A
B 1.5 x 1016m3/s
Factor 0.04
Auger Recombination 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
C 4.5 x 10-41m6/s
Factor -7
x 10
Confinement Factor Γ 0.06 18
x 10
Photon Lifetime τp 1.9 x 10-12s 3.1
Gain Compression -17 3 (b)
/ cm 3

E 4 x 10 cm 3
Factor
Carrier Density at 2.9
No 1.307 x 1018 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Transparency
-16 2 -7
Differential Gain gn 6.5 x 10 cm x 10
Group Velocity vg 8.4 x 109m/s 15
x 10
Electron Charge e 1.6 x 10-19C 3
Active Volume V 1.53 x 10-11cm3 (c)
/ cm 3

2
Effective Spontaneous
R 1 x 1012 1/s 1
Emission Rate
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Linewidth enhancement
α 3 time ------------> (s) -7
factor x 10
Carrier number at
Nth 0.46 x 108 10
threshold (d)
rad

5
The rate equations (11 – 13), were solved iteratively to
get the static characteristics of the laser diode. The input 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
current was linearly increased up to 100mA and the -7
corresponding carrier and photon densities were plotted. x 10
40
(e)
The optical power is found from the photon density using
mW

20
the formula
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
(Vact η hc) S(t) time ----------------> (s) -7
P(t) = x 10
(γ τ p λo )
(14)
Fig.7. Laser output (a) Input Current
The 2.4 GHz modulated signal current of magnitude 20 mA (b) Carrier Density (c) Photon Density (d) Phase (e) Power
p-p, is given to the laser biased at 50 mA and the carrier
density, photon density, phase and power variations of the
laser are determined as shown in Fig.7.
 The complex electric field at the input end of the fiber can transmission. This function was simulated for 5000 time
be expressed using optical power (P(t)), which is proportional samples. But even with 200 samples, a good approximation
to photon density S(t) , and phase Φ(t).. Hence the electric of the transfer characteristics can be obtained and hence the
field at the laser output can be calculated as function was truncated using a hamming window with the
following equation.
E in (t) = Pin (t) exp [iφ (t) ] (15)
 t
3

hw (t ) = .54 + .46 cos  π 
 T max
B. Single Mode Fiber Modeling   (18)
Single mode fibers are mostly preferred over multimode
fibers when high data rate and long distance transmission are The signal at the end of the fiber with length (L), was
required. The impulse response of a single mode fiber [14] can calculated by convolving the electric field input with the
be defined by the equation truncated transfer function of the fiber. Hence, the power
output at the fiber end is given by
 −it 2 
h(t) = (1 + i)(4Πβ2 L)−1/ 2 exp   (16)
 2β2 L  Pout (t ) = A Ein (t ) ⊗ h(t )
2
(19)
where, L and β2 represent the length of fiber and dispersion The power output of the fiber was fed a photo detector for
factor respectively. Dispersion (D) and β2 are related by detection. Thermal (IT) and shot noise (IQ) components are also
D= –2 Пβ2c/ λ02 (17) added to the received signal. The photo detector current for a
given input power is given by
The transfer function of the single mode fiber defined in the
above equation is a low pass filter whose magnitude and phase Ipd = RP0 + IT + IQ (20)
response are shown separately for 10km length (Fig.8)
where R, is the detector responsivity.
Amplit ude Response of 10km Fiber
1 The current detected out of the photo diode would then be
(a) fed to the OFDM receiver for demodulation and decoding, in
0.8 the case of reverse link and would be transmitted in the
wireless channel in case of the forward link.
0.6
C. Wireless Channel Modeling
Gain

As WLAN schemes are meant for indoor applications, the

0.4
wireless channel was modeled to be an indoor channel [17]. A
rayleigh channel model was used which includes the effects of
0.2
Doppler shift, multipath fading.
For indoor environments, path delays other than the line of
0
-4 -3 -2 -1 0
Freq - - > Hz
1 2 3 4 5
12
sight path are typically between 1 ns and 100 ns. Also a signal
x 10
Phase Response
Amplit of 10km
ude Response Fiber Fiber
of 10km
from a moving pedestrian might experience a maximum
1 Doppler shift of about 10.667 Hz given the transmission
3 (b) carrier frequency of 2.4GHz and the moving velocity of the
0.8 (a) pedestrian to be 3km/hr.
2

0.6
1 V. SIMULATION RESULTS
Phase -->rad
Gain

0 As RoF systems are mostly used for in-building and short

0.4
distance links [18] and in some OFDM transmission cases, the
-1
fiber length can be in the order of few tens of kms [4], Hence
0.2
-2 for analyzing the performance of the RoF system, the whole
-3 system was simulated for different fiber lengths of 10, 20, 50
0
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 and 100kms in the forward and reverse channels..
-4 Freq - - > Hz
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5x 10
Freq - - > Hz 12
x 10 The effect of the fiber and the wireless channel on the
Fig.6. Frequency Response of a 10km single mode fiber OFDM signal can be clearly seen from the spread of the signal
(a) Magnitude Response (b) Phase Response constellation. Fig.9. shows the constellations of the OFDM
signal after different fiber lengths. It is observed that as
From, the figure, it is clear that the fiber can support up to distance increases, the performance is degraded due to
frequencies of order of 1012 ( length dependent) for analog dispersion.
 Scatter plot Scat ter plot VI. CONCLUSION
1 1
In this paper, we provide the performance analysis of RoF
0.5
system for transmission of OFDM based WLAN signals for
0.5
long distance transmission. Here we simulated the system for
Quadrature

Quadrature
0 0
several fiber lengths and find the impact of dispersion along
-0.5 - 0.5
with wireless channel impairments. From the results of
-1 -1 different fiber lengths it is clear that significant coverage
-1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 -1 - 0.5 0 0.5 1
extension is possible with very minimum penalty.
In- Phase In- Phase

(a) (b) REFERENCES

Scatter plot

1.5
Scatter plot
1.5
1. Hamed Al Raweshidy and Shozo Komaki (eds),” Radio over
fiber technologies for mobile communications networks”,
1 1
Artech House, London.(2002)
0.5 0.5
2. W. Shieh and C. Athaudage, “Coherent optical orthogonal
Quadrature
Quadrature

0 0 frequency division multiplexing,” Electron. Lett. 42, 587 –

-0.5
-0.5 588 (2006).
-1
3. J. Lowery, L. Du, and J. Armstrong, “Orthogonal frequency
-1
division multiplexing for adaptive dispersion compensation
-1.5
-1.5
- 1.5 -1 - 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 in long haul WDM systems,” in Optical Fiber
In-Phase In- Phase
Communication Conference and Exposition and The
(c) (d) National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference, Technical
Fig.9. Signal Constellation at different Fiber Lengths (a) Digest, (Anaheim, CA, USA, 2006), Paper PDP39.
After 10km (b) After 20km 4. I. B. Djordjevic and B. Vasic, “Orthogonal frequency
(c) After 50km (d) After 100km division multiplexing for high-speed optical transmission,”
To investigate the effect of channel impairments, BER Vs Opt. Express 4, 3767-3775 ( 2006).
SNR plots are obtained by simulating the system at different 5. Guruprakash Singh and Arokiaswami Alphones.,” OFDM
noise levels. The simulations are repeated for different fiber Modulation Study for a Radio-over-Fiber System for
lengths to see the impact of fiber dispersion along with Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11a)”, Proceedings of Fourth
wireless channel effects. For comparison, a simple link with International Conference on Information, Communications
only AWGN(Direct link), a direct optical link without & Signal Processing, ICICS- PCM 2003, Singapore, pp
1460 – 1464.
wireless channel (Optical link)and a direct wireless link
6. Hongchun Bao and William Shieh,”Transmission simulation
including channel impairments (wireless link), without optical
of coherent Optical OFDM signals inWDM systems”, Opt.
is also simulated. Channel effects in wireless medium has the Express, Vol 15. No.8, 4410 - 4418 ( 2006).
larger impact on the total system performcance. The difference 7. William.S.C.Chang Ed,”RF photonic technology in optical
in error performance between wireless link and ROF link is fiber links”, Cambridge University press,Cambridge.(2002)
insignificant. 8. Cimini. L. J “Analysis and Simulation of a Digital Mobile
Channel Using Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing”. IEEE Transactions on Communications.
Vol. 33, No. 7, pp.665-675. (1985)
9. Anuj Batra, Jaiganesh Balakrishnan, G.Roberto Aiello,
Jeffrey R. Foerster, and Anand Dabak, ” Design of a
Multiband OFDM System for Realistic UWB Channel
Environments ” IEEE transactions on microwave theory
and techniques, vol. 52, no. 9, pp 2123-2138 september
2004
10.Schmidl, T.M and Cox D.C,“Robust Frequency and Timing
Synchronization for OFDM” IEEE Trans. Comm., vol. 45,
pp. 1613–1621, 1997.
11.Minn. H, Zeng. M, and Bhargava. V.K, “On timing offset
estimation for ofdm systems,” IEEE Communication letters,
vol. 4, pp. 242–244, July 2000.
12.Park. B, Cheon. H, Kang. W and Hong. D, “A simple
preamble for OFDM timing offset estimation,” Proc. IEEE
Fig.10. Performance curves of RoF system VTC 2002-Fall, vol.2, pp. 729–732, 2002
13.IEEE Std 802.11g™ (Amendment to IEEE Std 802.11™,
1999 Edition (Reaff 2003)