Optical Fiber Technology 19 (2013) 405–409

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Optical Fiber Technology

www.elsevier.com/locate/yofte

A bidirectional lightwave transport system based on PON integration

with WDM VLC
Chia-Yi Chen a, Po-Yi Wu a, Hai-Han Lu a,b,⇑, Ying-Pyng Lin a, Ching-Hung Chang c, Huang-Chang Lin b
a
Institute of Electro-Optical Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei 106, Taiwan
b
Department of Information Technology and Communication, Tungnan University, New Taipei City 222, Taiwan
c
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chiayi University, Chiayi 600, Taiwan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A novel bidirectional lightwave transport system employing phase modulation (PM) scheme and light
Received 20 March 2013 injection-locked distributed feedback laser diode (DFB LD) as a duplex transceiver for passive optical net-
Revised 5 May 2013 work (PON); as well as employing laser pointer lasers (LPLs) with directly modulating data signals for
Available online 5 June 2013
wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) visible light communication (VLC) is proposed and experi-
mentally demonstrated. Impressive and low bit error rate (BER) operation is achieved for PON integration
Keywords: with VLC application. Such bidirectional PON integration with VLC system has been successfully demon-
Passive optical network
strated, which can not only present its advancement in PON/VLC application but also reveal its simplicity
Phase modulation scheme
Visible light communication
and convenience to be installed. Whereby, our proposed system is suitably applicable to the PON in com-
Wavelength-division-multiplexing bination with VLC system in wire and wireless transmission.
Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Inc.

1. Introduction converted and phase-modulated CATV signals. Its application in

To reduce noise and distortion induced by systems, bidirec-
tional passive optical network (PON) integration with visible light
communication (VLC) lightwave transport systems with phase
modulation (PM) scheme and laser pointer lasers (LPLs) is pro-
posed and demonstrated. Different from a conventional intensity
modulation (IM) scheme, the radio-frequency passband (RF PB)
signal is modulated by phase shifting in which providing high
robustness against noise and distortion. Similar with other PM
scheme, the phase-modulated lightwave transport system needs
a delay interferometer (DI) to transfer the phase-modulated signal
into the intensity-modulated one before received by an optical re-
ceiver. Even the overall transmission performances are greatly pro-
moted, the sophisticated and expensive DI will be a serious
limitation in promoting such systems. Employing an injection-
locked distributed feedback laser diode (DFB LD) as a duplex trans-
ceiver was successfully demonstrated in the previous proposed
systems [1]. With optimum injection wavelength and power level,
a DFB LD is efficiently employed for both the transmitter and recei-
ver operations. Such DFB LD is used to replace the functions of DI
and optical receiver, and also to be as the upstream light source.
However, the systems just employed a DFB LD to detect the up-
⇑ Corresponding author. Address: National Taipei University of Technology,
Institute of Electro-Optical Engineering, 1, Sec. 3, Chung-Hsiao E. Rd., Taipei 106,
Taiwan. Fax: +886 2 87733216.
E-mail address: hhlu@ntut.edu.tw (H.-H. Lu).
bidirectional PON integration with VLC lightwave transport sys-
tems has not been addressed.
VLC systems are presently developed by researchers and engi-
neers to create high-speed and high security communication net-
works, in which using visible light to replace RF and microwave
signals. It can provide many benefits, like providing communica-
tion link in specific areas in which RF communication is prohibited,
such as in a hospital or in an airplane [2–4]. VLC systems use mod-
ulated light wavelengths emitted and received by a variety of suit-
ably adapted standard sources, primarily through the use of light
emitting diode (LED). In the previous studies, high-brightness
LED (HB-LED), red–green–blue (RGB) LED, and phosphor-based
LED are employed as the light sources for VLC systems [5–7]. Nev-
ertheless, the performances of the LED VLC systems can be further
improved by using LPL as the light source. As the light source is de-
ployed toward VLC systems, installation simplicity and conve-
nience are beyond disputed issues needed to be solved. To
overcome the limitations, LPLs (red and green lasers) are applied
in the wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) VLC systems [8].
LPL, with high optical power and light beam convergence charac-
teristics, is shown to be a prominent one to present its advantage
in WDM VLC applications. The infrared LD could be employed as
the light source to replace the visible LD (LPL) in free-space light
communication systems. Nevertheless, it is difficult to obtain good
free-space transmission performance due to laser light misalign-
ment between the transmitter and the receiver. Since the infrared
light is invisible, yet it is a challenge to aim the invisible laser light

1068-5200/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Inc.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yofte.2013.05.006
406 C.-Y. Chen et al. / Optical Fiber Technology 19 (2013) 405–409
at the photodiode (PD). As laser light misalignment problem oc-
curs, a rapid performance degradation happens in the systems.
Thereby, the LPL is more suitable than the infrared LD to be em-
ployed as the light source in free-space light communication
systems.
In this paper, a novel bidirectional lightwave transport system
employing PM scheme and light injection-locked DFB LD as a du-
plex transceiver for PON; as well as employing LPLs with directly
modulating data signals for WDM VLC is proposed and experimen-
tally demonstrated. Impressive experimental results prove that the
proposed systems not only can employ the PM scheme to optimize
the transmission performances, but also can use an injection-
locked DFB LD to detect the downstream RF PB signal as well as
to transmit the upstream baseband (BB) one simultaneously.
Moreover, with the help of push–pull amplifier and adaptive filter,
low bit error rate (BER) at 8 m/500Mbps operation is obtained for
VLC. For the application at the premises, the laser light is necessary
for sending out data signal wirelessly to integrate the PON and the
VLC (as shown in Fig. 1). Comparing with LED, LPL characteristics
create a new category of good performance with high-speed data
rate, long transmission length, easy handling, and convenient
installation. This proposed bidirectional PON integration with
VLC lightwave transport system is shown to be a distinguished
one not only to present its simplicity in PON integration with
VLC application but also to reveal its convenience to be installed.
2. Experimental setup
The experimental configuration of our proposed bidirectional
PON integration with VLC lightwave transport systems is shown
in Fig. 2. The output power and noise figure of erbium-doped fiber
amplifier (EDFA) used in systems are 17 dBm and 4.5 dB, at an
input power of 0 dBm, respectively. For the down-link transmis-
sion, in Fig. 1, a 500-Mbps data stream is mixed with a 10-GHz
RF carrier to generate the 500 Mbps/10 GHz RF PB signal. The
resulting RF PB data signal is supplied to the phase modulator.
The DFB LD1, with a central wavelength of 1549.53 nm (k1), pro-
vided an optical carrier to the phase modulator to transfer the
intensity modulated signal into the phase modulated one. The
polarization controller (PC), at the transmitter output, was used
to adjust the state of polarization of the transmitter signal. The
Cell
Phone
Notebook
ONT
PON
Fig. 1. For the application at the premises, the laser light is necessary for sending
out data signal wirelessly to integrate the PON and the VLC.
downstream optical signal was amplified by an EDFA and attenu-
ated by a variable optical attenuator (VOA), and then fed into a
20-km single-mode fiber (SMF) link. At the receiving site, the
downstream lightwave is routed by an optical circulator (OC), in-
jected into another DFB LD (DFB LD2, k2 = 1549.41 nm) to obtain
the RF PB signal. Subsequently, the RF PB signal is demodulated,
fed into a BER tester (BERT) for BER analysis, and supplied to the
VLC systems. In parallel with the down-link transmission, another
BB data signal from the VLC systems is coupled into the RF port of
the DFB LD2 for up-link transmission. The isolator placed between
the DFB LD2 and the RF coupler isolates the demodulated RF PB
signal. The directly modulated upstream BB data signal is then rou-
ted by the OC, amplified by another EDFA, attenuated by a VOA,
and fed into another 20 km SMF. At the receiving site, the upstream
signal is detected by a low bandwidth PD, and analyzed by a BERT.
The schematic scheme of the proposed bidirectional VLC sys-
tems employing two red LPLs with directly modulating data signals
over an 8-m free-space transmission is shown in Fig. 3. The LPLs,
with wavelength/color/power of 671 nm/red/5 mW and 650 nm/
red/5 mW, were directly modulated by a 500-Mbps data stream.
For down-link transmission, the 500-Mbps data stream is demod-
ulated from the bidirectional PON. For up-link transmission, the
500-Mbps data stream is generated by a Tektronix arbitrary wave-
form generator (AWG), with pseudorandom binary sequence
(PRBS) of 210–1. The modulated red lights were transmitted over
a distance of 8 m, and then reached to the PDs. The PD has the
detection wavelength range of 350–1100 nm, with a responsivity
of 0.65 mA/mW. The received signals were then amplified by the
push–pull amplifiers, and passed through the adaptive filters for
errors corrections. The performance and accuracy of the adaptive
filter depends on bit rate and data pattern. In the demonstration,
we use 210–1 PRBS length (not 215–1 or 223–1); for the same num-
ber of filter taps, lower data length results in better performance
and accuracy. Eventually, the data signals were fed into a BERT
for BER analysis.
3. Experimental results and discussions
With the operation characteristic of the PM scheme, the ampli-
tude fluctuation effect caused by noise and distortion can be re-
duced dramatically. There are many advantages to PM, one of
them is a great reduction in noise and distortion which will affect
the amplitude of signal. If the changes in amplitude can be re-
duced, then systems will have good transmission performances.
For PM scheme, the amplitude limitation deletes the effect of noise
and distortion, but does not disturb the original modulating infor-
mation. Besides, it has been shown that an injection-locked DFB LD
with phase-modulated optical signal can convert the PM signal
into the IM one. It should be noted that no RF PB signal is obtained
PC as the DFB LD is not injection-locked to the phase-modulated sig-
nal. However, as the DFB LD is locked to the phase-modulated sig-
nal, the RF PB signal is detected. An optimum injection locking can
Cell
be achieved if the frequency of the master laser (DFB LD1) is lower
Phone than that of the slave laser (DFB LD2) [9–11]. As DFB LD2 is injec-
tion-locked, its optical spectrum shifts a slightly longer wave-
length, matching to that of k1. The optimal injection locking
condition is found when the detuning between k1 and the k2 is
Analyzer +0.12 nm (1549.53 nm  1549.41 nm = 0.12 nm), in terms of the
best transmission performances.
The function of the adaptive filter, in which including an ampli-
tude/phase comparator, is to make an error correction. In imple-
Analyzer
menting the adaptive filter, first the transmitter send a data
pattern with an arbitrary data length as a protocol; and at the
receiving site, the adaptive filter has a stored copy of data signal
in the adaptive filter before starting communication. The output
 C.-Y. Chen et al. / Optical Fiber Technology 19 (2013) 405–409 407

10GHz
BERT
500Mbps/10GHz
A
OC 500Mbps

DFB LD1 DFB LD2

Demodulator VLC
PM EDFA
λ1=1549.53nm PC λ2=1549.41nm
20km
VOA Systems
SMF
500Mbps
Isolator

B
BERT PD EDFA
20km
VOA
SMF

Fig. 2. The experimental configuration of our proposed bidirectional PON integration with VLC lightwave transport systems.

Fig. 3. The schematic scheme of the proposed bidirectional VLC systems employing two red LPLs with directly modulating data signals over an 8-m free-space transmission.

of the adaptive filter with amplitude and phase without any non-
linear distortion is transmitted. Let dðnÞ has an amplitude aðnÞ
and phase hðnÞ:
dðnÞ ¼ aðnÞejhðnÞ
After transmission through free-space link, the received signal
der ðnÞ has a distorted amplitude aer ðnÞ and phase error her ðnÞ:
der ðnÞ ¼ aer ðnÞejher ðnÞ
The power of a transmitted symbol is PðnÞ, and a received symbol is
Pr ðnÞ:
PðnÞ ¼ a2 ðnÞ=2
Pr ðnÞ ¼ a2r ðnÞ=2
The adaptive filter has to estimate dðnÞ from der ðnÞ by error feed-
back. For amplitude compensation, the output of the amplitude
compensator is compared with a stored copy of aðnÞ to have an
amplitude error. For phase compensation, the output of the phase
compensator is compared with a stored copy of hðnÞ to have a phase
error. An adaptive algorithm updates amplitude and phase errors
every time so that the errors are minimized. Amplitude and phase
errors compensation are crucial for ensuring maximum nonlinear
distortion suppression, the use of adaptive filter offers significant
amplitude and phase errors compensation.
For down-link transmission, the measured BER curves of down-
stream 500 Mbps/10 GHz data channel are presented in Fig. 4a
ð1Þ (measured at point (A) of Fig. 2). The received optical power levels
at the BER of 109 are 25 (back-to-back (BTB)) and 24.4 (20 km
SMF) dBm, respectively. Power penalty of only 0.6 dB is presented
in systems due to the constant power operation characteristic of
ð2Þ PM scheme. An error free transmission is achieved to demonstrate
the possibility of employing a DFB LD to replace a DI and an optical
receiver. And further, the measured BER curves of downstream red
light LPL channel (671 nm) as a function of the free-space trans-
ð3Þ mission distance are plotted in Fig. 4b (measured at point (A) of
ð4Þ Fig. 3). At a free-space transmission distance of 8 m; without
employing the push–pull amplifier and the adaptive filter, the
BER is around 105; with employing the push–pull amplifier and
the adaptive filter, the BER is reached to 109. It is clear that as
the push–pull amplifier and the adaptive filter are employed
simultaneously, large BER performance improvement can be
achieved. It can be seen that the free-space transmission distance
of systems is degraded about 2 m, compared with our previous
work. This free-space transmission distance degradation is owing
to the fiber dispersion. Since the 500-Mbps data stream is
408 C.-Y. Chen et al. / Optical Fiber Technology 19 (2013) 405–409

2 2
with Amplifer & Adaptive Filter
(a) 20km SMF (a) without Amplifer & Adaptive Filter
BTB with Amplifer only
3 3 with Adaptive Filter only
-Log 10 (BER)

-Log 10 (BER)
4 4

5 5
6 6
7 7
8 8
9 9
10 10
11 11
12 12
-25.8 -25.5 -25.2 -24.9 -24.6 -24.3 -24.0 30 25 20 15 10 5 0
Received Optical Power (dBm) Free-space Transmission Distance (m)
2
with Amplifer & Adaptive Filter
(b) without Amplifer & Adaptive Filter
2
with Amplifer only (b) 20km SMF
3 with Adaptive Filter only BTB
3
-Log 10 (BER)

-Log 10 (BER)
4
5
6 5
7 6
8 7
9 8
10
11 9
12 10
24 20 16 12 8 4 0 11
12
Free-space Transmission Distance (m) -25.2 -24.6 -24.0 -23.4 -22.8 -22.2
Received Optical Power (dBm)
Fig. 4. (a) The measured BER curves of downstream 500 Mbps/10 GHz data
channel. (b) The measured BER curves of downstream red light LPL channel Fig. 5. (a) The measured BER curves of upstream red light LPL channel (650 nm) as a
(671 nm) as a function of the free-space transmission distance. (For interpretation function of the free-space transmission distance. (b) The measured BER curves of
of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web upstream 500 Mbps data channel. (For interpretation of the references to colour in
version of this article.) this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

demodulated from the 500 Mbps/10 GHz RF PB signal, in which with the operation characteristic of the IM scheme (upstream), the
transmitting through 20 km SMF. amplitude fluctuation caused by upstream noise and distortion
For up-link transmission, the measured BER curves of upstream cannot be reduced.
red light LPL channel (650 nm) as a function of the free-space
transmission distance are plotted in Fig. 5a (measured at point
4. Conclusion
(B) of Fig. 3). At a free-space transmission distance of 10 m; with-
out employing the push–pull amplifier and the adaptive filter, the
We proposed and demonstrated a novel bidirectional lightwave
BER is around 105; with employing the push–pull amplifier and
transport system based on PON integration with VLC; in which
the adaptive filter, the BER is decreased down to 109. For down-
employing PM scheme and light injection-locked DFB LD as a du-
link transmission of VLC systems, at a BER of 109, the acceptable
plex transceiver for PON, as well as using red LPLs with directly
free-space transmission distance is around 8 m. For up-link trans-
modulating data signals for WDM VLC. Low BER operation is
mission of VLC systems, at a BER of 109, the acceptable free-space
achieved for PON integration with VLC application. This proposed
transmission distance is about 10 m. Therefore, the acceptable
that such a bidirectional PON integration with VLC system has
free-space transmission distance of bidirectional VLC systems is
been successfully demonstrated, which can not only present its
limited to 8 m. And further, the measured BER curves of upstream
advancement in PON/VLC application but also reveal its simplicity
500 Mbps data channel are presented in Fig. 5b (measured at point
and convenience to be installed. It reveals a prominent alternative
(B) of Fig. 2). The received optical power levels at the BER of 109
to provide services for wide areas.
are 24.2 (BTB) and 23.1 (20 km SMF) dBm, respectively. Power
penalty of 1.1 dB is presented in systems due to the RF power deg-
radation induced by fiber dispersion. It also can be seen that the Acknowledgment
BER performance under BTB condition is degraded about 0.8 dB,
compared with the downstream one. This BER performance degra- The authors would like to thank the financial support from the
National Science Council of the Republic of China under Grant NSC
dation is due to the 500-Mbps data stream is derived from the VLC
systems, in which transmitting through 8 m free-space. Moreover, 100-2221-E-027-067-MY3, NSC 101-2221-E-027-040-MY3, and
NSC 102-2218-E-027-002.
the BER performance after 20 km SMF transmission is degraded
about 1.3 dB, compared with the downstream one. This BER perfor-
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