Radio-over-Fiber Technology for Wireless Communication Services

Oct. 13, 2005

Hoon Kim
Samsung Electronics hoonkim@ieee.org

Outline
1. Introduction 2. Current Technologies Analog transmission over fiber Digital transmission over fiber Analog transmission over HFC 3. Emerging technologies 4. Conclusion

Frequencies for Broadband Radio

0.8 GHz 1.8 GHz 2 GHz 2.4 GHz 2.6 GHz 3.4 GHz 5 GHz 18/19 GHz 28 GHz 38 GHz 58 GHz 62-66 GHz Cellular, 2G systems 2G systems UMTS/3G systems Wireless LANs (IEEE 802.11b/g) S-DMB 4G systems (TBD) Wireless LANs (IEEE 802.11a) Indoor wireless LANs Fixed wireless access (LMDS) Fixed wireless access, Pico cellular Indoor wireless LANs Mobile

Optical Fiber-Based Wireless Communication Systems

Advantages
Modulation format transparent Compact and reliable Centralized control of electronic circuitry Able to transport long distance with high fidelity

Disadvantages
Needs optical fibers High cost on uplink transmitters

BTS

BTS: Base transceiver station

Approaches
1. Analog transmission over fiber
SCM technology (IF over fiber or RF over fiber)

2. Digital transmission over fiber

Analog-to-Digital/Digital-to-Analog conversion

3. Analog transmission over HFC network

SCM technology

Major Applications
1. Elimination of the dead-zone Repeater based on optical transport systems 2. Remote antenna Fiber-To-The-Antenna (FTTA) systems 3. Capacity enhancement Microcell, picocell systems

Optical Links for Dead-Zones

Man-made obstacles Secluded places

fiber

Mountainous area

BTS

Tunnel

FTTA (Fiber-To-The-Antenna)
Advantages
Low loss Small size Light weight Immune to lightening strikes and electrical discharge Future-proof: protocol and bit-rate transparent

Coaxial cable loss (@1.8 GHz)

Cable diameter Loss (/100 m) 1/2 10.6 dB 7/8 5.9 dB 1+5/8 3.7 dB
Picture source: Erricson

Macrocellular Systems
MSC

BTS

Macrocell

T1/E 1

Antenna tower

BSC
E1 T1/

BTS

Local Exchange Carrier Radius: 1~3 km

BTS: Base transceiver station BSC: Base station controller MSC: Mobile switching center

Macrocell

BTS Site

Base Transceiver Station

I

DUC
Q

Up Conv.

PA

BSC

T1/E1

Modem
I

Duplexer /Diplexer

DDC
Q

Down Conv.

LNA

DUC: Digital Up-Converter PA: Power Amplifier BSC: Base Station Controller

DDC: Digital Down-Converter LNA: Low-Noise Amplifier

Cell Size Should be Smaller

Increased carrier frequency suffers from more propagation loss Higher capacity is required

Small Cell
Battery consumption is always a critical issue Increased concern about the effects of electro-magnetic wave on human body

Microcellular Systems
Microcell (radius : ~ 300 m)

RBS

RBS

RBS

O/E E/O

RBS

RBS

Remote Base Station

RBS

conventional cell (radius : 1- 2 km)

to exchange

System Configuration: Example

Source: David Wake, Microwave Photonics Inc.

Remote Base Station (RBS)

Basic configuration

fiber

W D M

E/O

Diplexer RBS

O/E

Major advantages
Format transparency Small size Light weight High reliability

FoMiCell: Remote Base Station

Power Supply
58 cm

E/O & O/E Duplexer & Filter High Power Amplifier (15 Watt/3 FAs)
45

Processor Frequency Converter

37 cm

OFC/IOOC, paper PD13, 1999

cm

Application Example
Sydney Olympic Games
Tekmar BriteCell In-building and external pico-cell Multi-operator system (3 GSM operators) Multi-standard radio (900/1800 MHz GSM) >500 Remote antenna units 0.8 x 1.8 km coverage Low RF power distributed antenna system Dynamic allocation of network capacity 500,000 wireless calls on the opening day

Source: David Wake, Microwave Photonics Inc.

Wireless Signal Transport Using SCM Technology

Central Base Station
C o n t r o l l e r

PD LD

LD LD LD LD PD PD PD PD

PD LD

Major merits
Minimize the complexity of the RBSs

Remote Base Station

Ta-Shing Chu, AT&T, 1991 J. Namiki, NEC, 1993

SCM Lightwave Systems

f1

combiner

Data

fN

BPF

fi

LD

PD

Data

Data

BPF

Transmitter
LD linearity Spatial hole burning Nonlinear current leakage Slipping distortion Nonlinear coupling of gain and optical power RIN Intensity noise Mode partition noise Mode hoping noise

Fiber
Multipath interference Dispersion SBS SPM

Receiver
Linearity of preamplifier Thermal noise Shot noise

Spurious-Free Dynamic Range Considerations

Two strong carriers

SFDR = Pr + CNRrequired G
Pr
Pr: Power difference

One weak carrier Noise Intermod. Comp.

CNRrequired : Required CNR

G: Handset power control

Spurious-Free Dynamic Range Requirements (I)

Unit: dB-Hz2/3 Applications Indoor, no obstructions Indoor/outdoor with some non-line-of sight obstructions Outdoor, with congested obstructions

IS-136 GSM/DCS1800 PDC PHS DECT CT-2 83~98 74~89 73~88

58~73 56~71 59~74 103~118 94~109 94~108

98~108 96~106 99~109

W. I. Way, Broadband hybrid fiber/coax access system technologies, 1999

Spurious-Free Dynamic Range Requirements (II)

Unit: dB-Hz2/3 Applications SFDR requirement

GSM (900 MHz, indoor) GSM (900 MHz, outdoor) PCS (1900 MHz) AMPS (900 MHz, single antenna) AMPS (900 MHz, multiple antennas) GSM (1~2 GHz, 3-band) HiperLan (5 GHz) IEEE 802.11a (5 GHz) IEEE 802.11b (2.4 GHz)

100 106 72-83 91 80 105 94 94 94

A. Larsson, NEFERTITI Workshop, 2005

Current Technologies: IF over SMF/MMF

Type
IF over SMF/MMF

Example
LGCell

Company
LGC Wireless

Comments
Added complexity (cost) at remote unit. Can use pre-installed fiber

Antenna Unit Central Hub Remote Hub

BTS

RF

IF

LD
SMF/MMF

PD
UTP

R. Penty, NEFERTITI Workshop, 2005

Current Technologies: RF over SMF

Type
RF over SMF

Example
BriteCell FiberDAS

Company
Andrew Remec

Comments
Simple remote unit but relatively expensive optics. Uses specially installed fiber.
Antenna Unit

Central Hub

Remote Hub

BTS

RF

LD
SMF

PD
Coax

R. Penty, NEFERTITI Workshop, 2005

Issue in Wireless Signal Transport Systems Using SCM Technology

1. Optical fiber should be installed 2. Mostly point-to-point architecture 3. Cost issues on upstream transmitters

Wireless Signal Transport using Digital Transmission Technology

Transmitters Combiner RF-digital converter Optical transmitter WDM Receivers Splitter Digital-RF converter Optical receiver

MTSO

Optical Receiver WDM Optical Transmitter

Digital-RF converter Duplexer RF-digital converter

Major merits
High performance Use of mature digital transport technology Compatible with multimode fiber infrastructure

Analog-to-Digital Converter
15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Aperture jitter

3 2 1

Quantization error

10 9 8

Signal-to-Noise Ratio
f SNR = 6.02 B + 1.76 + 10 log10 s 20 log10 ( N ) (dB ) 2f max

6 B 20 log10 ( N ) (dB )
B: number of bits of resolution fs: sampling frequency fmax: maximum frequency of the input analog signal N: number of RF carriers

1 SNR jitter = 20 log10 2f t max a

ta: aperture jitter of the ADC

Analog vs. Digital Transport

Sych loss

Digital transport

Performance

Quantization noise-dominant

An al og

tr an sp o

rt

Distance

Current Technologies: Digital over SMF/MMF

Type Example Company Comments
ADC Added complexity (cost) at remote unit. Mature digital technology Can use pre-installed fiber

Digital over Digivance SMF/MMF

Remote Antenna Unit Central Hub

BTS

RF

IF

A/D

LD
SMF/MMF

PD

D/A Sync

Issues of Wireless Signal Transport Systems Using Digital Transmission Technology

1. Cost issues of A/D and D/A converters 2. Clock recovery is required at the receivers 3. Frequency converters are typically required 4. Overheads of digitized signals

Wireless Signals Over HFC

Head End

Fiber

Fiber node

Major merits
Use of the existing HFC networks

Coaxial Cable Transmission Characteristics Affecting Wireless Access

1. Interference between existing wireline signals and wireless signals 2. Multiple antenna noise 3. Transmission delay between any two mBSs 4. Available cable spectra (<1 GHz) 5. Funneling ingress and impulse noise 6. Multiple micro-reflections in the coaxial cable plant

Emerging Technologies: EAM-based Transceiver

Central Site RAU

Laser E A M PD

Acts as photodiode for downlink Acts as modulator for uplink Can operate using FDD or TDD Can operate in passive mode
D. Wake et al., Electron. Lett., 1997 Microwave Photonics Inc.

Relatively poor performance either as photodiode or modulator Limited coverage when operating in passive mode

Emerging Technologies: WDM

Efficient usage of fiber (ring, bus, double star architectures) Can be deployed over a WDM-PON Flexible service provision
BS 1 RN BS 2 RN
1,

1
3,

BS BS

2 n

2,

BS 1 2 BS BS

Central Office

1, 2, 3, n

Central Office

RN n BS

RN n-1 BS

n BS

Emerging Technologies: MMW over Fiber

Reduced cell coverage makes this technology attractive for this application. Enormous bandwidth of optical fiber suitable for MMW signal transport. Dispersion-induced signal fading SSB transmission.

CRL, Japan

Dispersion-Induced Signal Fading

f1

Dispersive medium

Normalized Optical Power

0

Fiber Length (km)

Single Side-Band (SSB) Modulation

Hilbert Transform CW
RF signal (f1) 90 shift f1 MZ modulator

Optical Filtering

RF signal (f1) f1

CW

Intensity modulator

Optical filter

Conclusions
Merging of photonic and radio technologies
- Fiber-radio as a last mile solution. - Centralized control of electronic equipment is the main advantage of fiber-radio technology. - Cost is the paramount issue for the wide deployment of this technology.

Major Issues
- Cost-effective upstream transport. - Opto-electronic interfaces. - Integration of photonic and radio components.