Hybrid modulation technique for SCM systems V.R.Wickramasinghe, Dr.Z.Ghassemlooy, Dr R. Saatchi and Dr.A. Simmonds Sheffield Hallam University, School of Engineering IT, Pond street, Sheffield S1 1WB. Introduction The development of low attenuation fibres and coherent optical sources made optical communication commercially viable in the 1980s, With its potential bandwidth extending well into the THz region it promised to deliver broadband services to the home and business environments. But the high speed switching required for digital optical communication is still under development and it will still be a few years before broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN) is commercially realised (1-3). . An attractive alternative to deliver broadband services is to employ existing microwave technology over optical fibres. Such systems are called subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) systems and have already reached commercial stage in local area networks and cable televisions{4]. In a SCM system, analogue or digital baseband channels are up converted using microwave carriers at different frequencies. The modulated signals are frequency division multiplexed(FDM) and drives an optical source. The microwave carriers are the so called subcarriers as opposed to the optical carrier [5] SCM systems have several advantages over the digital systems(6] 2) microwave components are cost effective b) existing microwave techniques extend into the GHz range, and SCM systems can access the high optical bandwidths. ¢) flexibility and upgradability in the design of broadband networks d) analogue and digital channels can be transmitted simultaneously. Existing SCM systems Despite the recent advances in coherent optical systems, majority of existing SCM systems employ intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) for optical transmission, In IM/DD systems, the modulation format used to deliver the SCM signal is crucial to achieve an adequate signal to noise ratio(SNR) at the receiver [4] The majority of existing SCM systems employ analogue signals for transmission over optical fibres. Analogue signal transmission is less immune to noise and non-linearities and require high carrier to noise ratio(CNR)s at the receiver to deliver adequate signal performance. As a result analogue signals impose strict noise and linearity requirements, and restrict the optical power budget, limiting transmission distance, the number of subscribers and the number of channels.(7] Proposed System There has been a renewed interest in pulse time modulation (PTM) techniques with the development of optical communication. PTM techniques are capable of exploiting desirable features of analogue and digital optical communication and is unique in its SNR, bandwidth trade-off [8] The proposed system is a hybrid modulation technique which aims to improve the cost, bandwidth to SNR trade-off and the optical power budget by employing a combination of analogue and PTM modulation.1 BF} Xx > Opi Fite () —— ae Block diagram of the proposed system, employing bandpass filtering at the receiver Chanel Channel a (Channel Conventional SCM methods are used to form the composite signal, Modulation format used to convert the baseband channels is determined by a number of factors such as bandwidth and SNR requirements, circuit complexity, compatibility requirements, cost etc The frequency multiplexed signal is converted into a PTM signal before being fed to the optical device, and at the receiver a PTM demodulator follows the optical receiver. Two standard microwave techniques, bandpass filtering or heterodyne receivers, can be employed to recover the baseband channels from the analogue multiplexed signal By converting the analogue SCM signal into a PTM signal for transmission over optical fibre, the following gains can be made a) PTM can deliver high SNR for a low CNR. This improves the available power budget and transmission distance and the number of subscribers can be increased b) PTM impose less stringent non linearity requirements on the optical source c) PTM signals can be routed through switches, 4) Improve the input dynamic range of the transmitter. Aim of the project is to investigate the performance of pulse interval modulation(PIM) and pulse interval width modulation(PIWM) in particular, since they are two attractive forms of PTM where, there has been little work carried out System implementation The implementation has been approached from three different dimensions. a) theoretical analysis b) system simulation ©) hardware implementation The theoretical analysis involves the mathematical modelling of the conventional SCM system and the proposed system. The system parameters such as SNR, carrier to noise ratio(CNR), non-linear distortion, number of transmission channels and distance are determined and performance of the two systems are compared. The mathematical model is simulated using MATLAB software package, which helps to identify spectral behaviour and the effect of noise etc. Hardware implementation demonstrate the practical application of the proposed system for broad band signal (voice, data, video) transmission. A four channel system, consisting of a baseband video channel, two audio channels and a data channels is being implemented,‘Measurements carried out on the system can be compared with the results of the theoretical analysis to draw conclusions. References 1 Fox, J.R., Jewell, $.T. 'A broad band distributed star network using subcarrier fibre transmission’, IEEE journal on selected ares in communications, Sep. 1990, vol.8 no.7 2 Darcie, T.E., ‘SCM for lightwave networks and video distribution’, IEEE journal on selected ares in communications, Sep. 1990, vol.8 no.7 3. IEEE Communications magazine Feb. 1993, special edition on optical fibres in the subscriber loop 4 Agrawal, G.P., Fiber optic communication systems, Chapter 7, pp.302-310 ‘McMillan publishiong company, copyright 1993 5 Way, W.L.: 'SCM lightwave system design considerations for subscriber loop applications’, Journal of Lightwave Technology, Nov. 1989, vol. 7, no. 11, pp.1806- 1817 6 Olshansky, R., Lanzisera, V.A. and Hill, P.M."SCM lightwave systems for broadband distribution’, Journal of Lightwave Technology, Sep. 1989, vol.7, no.9, pp.1329-1340 Grace, M.K..'Synchronous quantized SCM for transport of video, voice and data’ IEEE Journal on selected areas in communication, Sep. 1990, vol.8, no.7, pp.1351-1358 8 Wilson, B. and Ghassemlooy, Z.:Pulse time modulation for optical communication:a review, IEE Proceedings-J, Dec. 1993, vol. 140, no.6, pp.346-357 “