Publikace

In the modern wireless networks, millimeter-wave radio-frequency (RF) bands are becoming more attractive as they provide larger bandwidth and higher data rates than the today-used systems operating at frequencies below 6 GHz. In addition, according to the fact that coaxial cables exhibit extremely high attenuation for millimeter-wave RF signals, analog radio over fiber techniques (RoF) form a promising technology for delivering unaltered radio waveform to a remote antenna. This paper experimentally analyzes three types of RoF modulations, namely a directly modulated laser, an electro-absorption modulator, and a Mach-Zehnder Modulator. The primary focus is on the implementation of each RoF transmitter in an RoF system, such as those in 5G networks. The experimental study includes a detailed characterization of an RoF system with a 50-m long outdoor free-space RF channel operating in the frequency band of 25 GHz. Frequency response (S-parameters) and third-order nonlinear distortion are investigated in detail. Tests of EVM performance were conducted using an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing signal modulated with 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) with a long-term evolution signal. It is demonstrated that the transmitters studied can operate under a 13.5% EVM limit given for 16-QAM. Apart from the detailed system performance, the considerable power fluctuations in the 25 GHz free-space RF outdoor channel are reported.

In optical camera communication (OCC) systems leverage on the use of commercial off-the-shelf image sensors to perceive the spatial and temporal variation of light intensity to enable data transmission. However, the transmission data rate is mainly limited by the exposure time and the frame rate of the camera. In addition, the camera’s sampling will introduce intersymbol interference (ISI), which will degrade the system performance. In this paper, an artificial neural network (ANN)-based equaliser with the adaptive algorithm is employed for the first time in the field of OCC to mitigate ISI and therefore increase the data rate. Unlike other communication systems, training of the ANN network in OCC is done only once in a lifetime for a range of different exposure time and the network can be stored with a look-up table. The proposed system is theoretically investigated and experimentally evaluated. The results record the highest bit rate for OCC using a single LED source and the Manchester line code (MLC) non-return to zero (NRZ) encoded signal. It also demonstrates 2 to 9 times improved bandwidth depending on the exposure times where the system’s bit error rate is below the forward error correction limit.

Visible light communication (VLC) systems are highly constrained by the limited 3-dB bandwidth of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Analogue pre-equalisers have been proposed to extend the LED's bandwidth at the cost of reduced signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Compared with the pre-equaliser, the multi-carrier modulation with bit-loading can efficiently use the spectrum beyond the LED's raw 3-dB bandwidth without incuring SNR penalties by employing multiple narrow quasi-flat sub-bands to eliminate the need for equalisation. In this work we show by means of theoretical and experimental investigation that VLC with multi-band carrierless amplitude and phase modulation with bit-loading can outperform VLC with analogue pre-equalisers.

We present a theoretical and experimental study on the impact of different thermal-induced free-space turbulence distributions on the M–quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM) signal transmission in radio frequency K-band over hybrid optical links of standard single mode fiber (SSMF) and free-space optics (FSO). Frequency multiplication using an external intensity modulator biased at the null transmission point has been employed to photonically generate radio signals at a frequency of 25 GHz , included for the frequency bands for fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. Moreover, extensive simulations have been performed for 10Gb/s with 4-, 16-, and 64-QAM over 5 km of SSMF and 500 m long FSO channels under scenarios with different turbulence levels and distributions. Proof-of-concept experiments have been conducted for 20 MHz with 4- and 64-QAM over 5 km of SSMF and 2 m long FSO channels under turbulence conditions. Both theoretical and experimental systems have been analyzed in terms of error vector magnitude (EVM) performance showing feasible transmission over the hybrid links in the received optical power range. Non-uniform turbulence distributions are shown to have a different impact on M-QAM modulation formats, i.e., turbulence distributions with higher strength in the middle of the FSO link reveal a 1.9 dB penalty when using 64-QAM signals compared to a 1.3 dB penalty using 4-QAM signals, whereas higher penalties have been measured when 4-QAM format is transmitted over turbulence distributions with larger magnitude in the second half of the FSO link. The results have been validated by theoretical predictions and lead to practical consequences on future networks’ deployment.

We made and characterized two Fabry-Perot interferometer samples made of the latest-generation hollow core fiber with sub-1-dB/km loss. Thanks to this low transmission loss, we achieved a finesse of over 140 and 120, for interferometer lengths of 5 and 23 m, respectively. This resulted in transmission peaks as narrow as 47 kHz. Our all-fiber Fabry-Perot interferometers have standard single-mode fiber pigtails (for easy integration in conventional fiber optic systems) and employ fiber mode field adapters to enable low-loss coupling between the pigtails and the low-loss hollow core fiber. The high-reflectivity mirrors (>98%) were deposited directly on the fiber mode field adapters, which were glued to the hollow core fiber, resulting in permanently-aligned Fabry-Perot interferometers. We also measured how the position of the transmission peaks change with temperature (an important performance metrics for most applications, e.g., when used as a narrow-band band-pass filter) and found that it changed 14.5 times less in our Fabry-Perot interferometer relative to a similar device made of standard single mode fiber.

We present a simple but highly accurate modeling technique for real photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) characterization. We determine the influence caused by idealized model parameters. Our technique can be applied to arbitrary PCF air-hole structures, as it takes into account all structural distortions. It requires only an image of the PCF cross-section to create an accurate PCF model. Model outputs are presented in comparison with the measurement of chromatic dispersion curve and the effective mode area. We provide a study on the impact of imprecise determination of glass refractive index on the PCF model accuracy. We demonstrate how the simplification of the air-hole deformations can influence the chromatic dispersion curve. Finally, we show the effect of precise PCF modeling on example of supercontinuum generation.

In this paper, we study the impact of correlation on the bit error rate (BER) and the channel capacity of a free-space optical (FSO) multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) system employing optical space shift keying (OSSK) over a fading channel. In order to study a practical correlated channel, we consider the effect of channel correlation due to both small-and large-scale eddies and show that the use of OSSK over correlated FSO channel can lead to an improved system performance with increasing correlation level of upto 0.9. In this work, we first develop an analytical framework for different performance metrics of the OSSK multiple-input single-output system with correlation and then extend our investigation by proposing an asymptotically accurate mathematical framework for MIMO. We also validate all the analytical results using MATLAB simulations. Finally, we develop an experimental setup of FSO with two correlated links to study the throughput and latency of the links at different turbulence levels.

Microwave photonics is a promising solution to transmit millimeter wave (mmW) signals for the 5th generation (5G) mobile communications as part of a centralized radio access network (C-RAN). In this paper, we experimentally evaluate the impact of turbulent free space optics links on photonically generated mmW signals in the frequency range of 26−40 GHz . We analyze the remote generation of mmW signals over hybrid links based on free-space optics (FSO) and standard single mode optical fiber (SSMF) with −39.97dBm received electrical power and phase noise level at 100kHz as low as −95.92dBcHz at 26GHz . Different thermal distributions along the FSO link have been implemented and Gamma-Gamma model has been employed to estimate the thermally induced turbulence. The results show high electrical power decrease and fluctuation of the generated mmW signal according to the particular level of the turbulence in terms of refractive index structure parameter and thermal distribution along the FSO link. 8Gb/s 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) data transmission at 42GHz has been demonstrated over the hybrid link with minimal error vector magnitude (EVM) value of 5% whereas turbulent FSO link introduced up to 5dB power penalty.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a photonics-assisted converged radio-over-fiber (RoF), radio-over-free-space optics (RoFSO) and millimeter-wave (MMW) wireless transmission system for use in broadband wireless access (BWA) networks. The focus is at the emerging frequency band of 25 GHz, as recommended for fifth-generation networks. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, all-optical up-converted long-term evolution test models with 4-, 16- and 64-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) are transmitted and evaluated over the proposed hybrid link under weak-to-strong atmospheric turbulence regimes. Link performance shows that, the error vector magnitudes are below the 3GPP standard for 4-, 16- and 64-QAM. We also show that, for all QAM signals under turbulence conditions, the bit error rate performance is below the forward error correction limit of ${10^{ - 3}}$ . Simulation analysis is also performed for the 10 Gb/s hybrid systems under turbulence for an extended FSO link up to 500 m to emulate a practical outdoor environment. Furthermore, we analytically estimate the attainable MMW wireless range for different rain rates in Prague, Czech Republic. The obtained experimental and simulation results confirm the feasibility and potential of the proposed hybrid system for next-generation last mile BWA networks.

The concept of device-to-device (D2D) communication, combining common radio frequency (RF) and visible light communication (VLC), is seen as a feasible way how to cope with spectrum crunch in the RF domain and how to maximize spectral efficiency in general. In this paper, our objective is to decide when RF should be utilized or if VLC proves to be the more profitable option. The selection between RF and VLC is defined as a multi-objective optimization problem targeting primarily to minimize the outage ratio while the secondary objective is to maximize the sum capacity of D2D pairs, composed by D2D transmitters and D2D receivers. To solve this problem, we design a centralized low-complexity heuristic algorithm selecting either RF or VLC band for each D2D pair relying on the mutual interference among the pairs. For interpretation of the mutual interference among the D2D pairs, we exploit directed weighted graphs adopted from the graph theory. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of the outage ratio, sum capacity and average energy efficiency. What is more, despite a very low complexity, the proposed algorithm reaches a close-to-optimum performance provided by the exhaustive search algorithm.