Performance of a 90-GHz Radio-on-Radio-over-Fiber System

Suitable for Communications in High-Speed Railways

Pham Tien Dat, Atsushi Kanno, and Tetsuya Kawanishi

National Institute of Information and Communication, Japan

Abstract - We propose a radio access network suitable for

communications in high-speed railways employing a radio-on­ II. CONCEPTUAL SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
radio-over-fiber and distributed antenna system. We present a
proof-of-concept demonstration of wireless signal transmission Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a RoRoF-DAS-based
over the system at 90 GHz. Standard LTE-A signals using QPSK, cellular system using a wavelength-division mUltiplexing
16-QAM and 64-QAM modulation are successfully transmitted (WDM) ring for high-speed rails. Several remote antenna
and demodulated. Satisfactory transmission performance with
units (RAUs) are linearly located along the track and
measured root-mean-square EVM well under the standard
requirement is achieved. The obtained results indicate the
interconnected by a fiber ring. The RAU could be assigned a
potential to make use of the system in high-speed rail couple of wavelengths to transmit the downlink and uplink
communications. data from/to the control station (CS). At the CS, a RoRoF
Index Terms - advanced long term evolution (LTE-A), fiber­ signal could be generated and transmitted via a fiber ring to
.
wireless convergence, millimeter-wave (MMW), radio-over-fiber
the RAUs. The received RoRoF signal would be directly
(RoF).
converted to a MMW signal and emitted into the air. Train
antenna units (TAUs) will gather and down-convert the MMW
I. INTRODUCTION signal to the original signals. They are then sent to the access
points (APs) installed on the train and fmally communicate
The introduction of bandwidth-hungry services and the
with the users in the traditional microwave. For the uplink
proliferation of personal multimedia devices have driven a
transmission, users' data could be captured by the APs,
strong demand for broadband communication in high-speed
converted to a MMW signal and transmitted over free-space to
trains. To offer such a communication, a cellular-based
the RAUs. The received MMW signal at the RAUs could be
trackside technology with reducing cell size, implementing
transmitted to the CS via a fiber cable.
one-dimensional-cell patterns and using high-radio
All signal processing functions, including baseband units
frequencies in the millimeter-wave (MMW) band will be
(BBU), can be located at the CS, so the RAUs and the TAUs
necessary [1]. Nevertheless, the transmission in MMW band is
are very simple and compact. Different services can be
highly attenuated, so the cell size must be small. A huge
encapsulated into a high-bandwidth MMW carrier, and
number of cells therefore needed to be deployed along the
transmitted to the trains via the system. All the RAUs share
track, resulting in a high-cost and low-energy efficient system.
the same frequency so that no handover is needed when the
Another critical problem is handover. Because each cell uses a
train moving inside the fiber ring. The train location could be
different radio frequency, a handover procedure must be taken
traceable nearly in real time and only RAUs that the train is
every time the users cross the cell boundary. This will result in
approaching need to be powered up for transmission. Other
call drop and service interruption, which is a particularly
RAUs could be powered down for energy saving and
severe issue in high-speed rail communications due to its
interference reduction. Inter-RAUs interference and Doppler
unique characteristics.
effects would be critical issues in the system. So highly
In this paper we propose a system for high-speed rail
directive antennas should be employed to avoid the co-channel
communications employing a radio-on-radio-over-fiber
interference. A transmit beam-forming technique would
(RoRoF) and a linearly located distributed antenna system
further help to reduce the interference and inter-carrier
(DAS). A proof-of-concept system using a seamless
interference [2]. It could also be reduced via employing
convergence of a radio-over-fiber (RoF) and MMW will be
multiple antennas [3]. For the MMW link, 90-GHz band is a
introduced. Standard L TE-advanced signals using different
promising candidate because of its advantages on bandwidth
modulation formats including quadrature phase-shift keying
and atmospheric attenuation. A maximum capacity of a RAU­
(QPSK), 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (l6-QAM), and
TAU connection at 90 GHz with a 6-GHz available bandwidth
64-quadrature amplitude modulation (64-QAM) are
is estimated in Fig. 2 using Shannon theory [4], assuming an
successfully transmitted and demodulated. Stable and
antenna gain of 40dBi and a rain attenuation of 36.9dB/km.
satisfactory performance is achieved after a seamless RoF and
This capacity upper limit could be approached using high­
I-m 90-GHz wireless link transmission, indicating the
spectral efficient systems. RAUs with different sizes could be
potential of the proposed system for high-capacity
selected to satisfy the communication demand and dependent
communications in high-speed railways.
on the number of TAUs installed on a train.

978·1-4799-3869-8/14/$31.00 ®2014 IEEE

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Fig. 3. Experiment set up for the LTE-A signal transmission over the RoRoF system.

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Fig. 4. Signal spectrum and SSB phase noise of generated signals when transmitting only the IF carrier signal.
III. RoRoF SYSTEM EXPERIMENT
optical power, and an optical bandpass fIlter (OBPF) is used to
A. Experiment Set up reduce the amplifIed spontaneous emission noise. The
A simple and reliable RoRoF system will be the key enabler generated two-tone optical signal is then put into a second
for the aforementioned application. We propose a seamless MZM, and modulated by the IF signals generated from a
RoF and MMW system employing a photonic technique to vector signal generator (PSG). It is then amplifIed by the
generate a high-quality optical MMW signal, a direct photonic second EDFA. The signal is fed into a SMF and up-converted
up-conversion to generate a 90-GHz signal, and a direct to a radio-on-radio (RoR) signal at 90-GHz band by a high­
detection to recover stably original wireless signals. A proof­ speed photo-detector (u2t-PD), and directly emitted into free­
of-concept system demonstration is shown in Fig. 3 for the space by a hom antenna. The RoR signal after transmitted
L TE-A signal transmission. At the CS, an optical MMW over the free-space is collected by another antenna at receiver
signal is fIrst generated by feeding a continuous-wave signal side. The original radio signal is then recovered by a zero­
from a laser diode (LD) to a high-extinction ratio dual-parallel biased Schottky Barrier Diode (SBD) working as a direct
Mach-Zehnder interferometer modulator (DPMZM) [5]. An detector, and amplifIed by a low-noise amplifIer (LNA). The
electrical signal is fed to an electrode of the main MZM biased signal is then sent to a real-time spectrum analyzer (PXA) and
at the maximum transmission point to generate even-order fInally analyzed by the commercially-available software
sideband components. The modulated optical signal is then (Agilent 89600-series vector signal analyzer; VSA).
passed through an optical band-elimination fIlter (OBEF) to
B. Experiment Results
suppress the carrier component. A coherent two-tone signal
with frequency separation of quadrupling the fed signal is We fIrst measure the generated signal spectrum and phase
achieved. An optical amplifIer (EDFA) is used to boost up the noise as presented in Fig. 4. A MMW signal with high-

978'1-4799-3869-8/14/$31.00 ®2014 IEEE

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Fig_ 5 Experiment results for LTE-A signal transmission over the RoRoF system: (a) spectrum and constellation diagram, (b) EVM
versus the input IF signal power,and (c) EVM versus received MMW signal power.
TABLE L
SYSTEM PARAMETERS AND SIGNAL REQUIREMENTS
Parameters Values with EVM value is well under the required limit. Thanks to
Tx. opt . power 10 dBm the use of the direct detection at receiver and the high-quality
Antenna gain 23 dBi generated MMW signal, a stable performance with measured
Wireless distance 1m EVM variation over time less than 0.2 dB is observed_ By

LNA gain 43 dB varying the transmit MMW signal, we also measure the EVM

Required rmsEVM for QPSK 17.5 % for different received signal as presented in Fig_ 5(c)_ From the

Required rmsEVM for 16 QAM 12.5 %

result it is indicated that the signal could be transmitted over a
further wireless distance. For instance, with a required EVM
Required rmsEVM for 64 QAM 8%
of 8% for 64-QAM signal, a minimum power of about -25
dBm should be received_ This received power corresponds to a
frequency accuracy, narrow linewidth and a carrier to noise
transmission distance of about five meters if a power of
ratio (CNR) of greater than 60 dB could be generated. A very
10dBm is transmitted.
stable IF signal with a CNR of approximately 60 dB is
recovered when transmitting only the carrier signal. Single C. Achievable Wireless Distance
side band (SSB) phase noise of the generated and the
For the practical applications, the wireless achievable
recovered signal is also measured and compared to that of the
distance is an important parameter. In this subsection, we
original signals. A shown in the figure, phase noise of the
discuss the achievable transmission distance for different
generated 90-GHz signal is about 12 dB higher than the fed
transceiver antenna gains, based on the minimum allowed
electrical signal which is in well agreement with an ideal
received power observed from the measurement shown in Fig_
quadrupling generation. The phase noise of the recovered
5 (c). The received power after transmission over the MMW
radio signal is about -100dBcIHz, which is about 30dB higher
link could be calculated by
than the original signal. We then transmit a high-speed L TE­
A signal over the system. LTE-A is the evolved version of the
LTE signal that is being developed by 3GPP [6]. The main
Pr(dB) = � +G{ +Gr -20x 10glO ( :' )
4 /
( )
- L+ rR x d - M (1)

features of the L TE-A signal include carrier aggregation,

increased MIMO, coordinated multipoint transmission, where G, and Gr are the transmitter and receiver antenna gain,
h e t e r o g e n e o u s n e t w o r k s u p p o r t , and r e l a y s . C a r r i e r respectively, Land YR are the atmospheric gaseous and rain
aggregation could combine u p t o five 20-MHz channels into attenuation, respectively, P , is the transmit power incident to
one to increase data speed. In our measurement, we generate a the transmit antenna, d is the wireless transmission distance, 1
L TE-A signal which aggregates three 20-MHz carrier is the frequency of the MMW signal, and M is the link margin
components and transmit over the system. An example of the for other effects, such as fading and fog attenuation_
received power spectrum and constellation diagrams of carrier Atmospheric attenuation L at a frequency of 90 GHz is
component is shown in Fig_ 5(a)_ A spectrum with clear approximately 1 dB/kill. Rain attenuation can be estimated by
separation of carrier components and clear constellation the following equation based on the rainfall rate parameter [7]
diagrams for QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM signal are
(2)
observed. We also measure the averaged rms EVM of the data
carried by each carrier component. The measurement follows
where R (rum/h) is the rain intensity, and coefficients k and a
t h e s t a n d a r d p r o c e d u r e r e c o m m e n d by 3 G P P [6]. A
are frequency dependent and could be determined using curve-
satisfactory performance was achieved as shown in Fig. 5(b)

978-1-4799-3869-8/14/$31_00 ®2014 IEEE

 TABLE II
WIRELESS LINK AVAILABILITY AND RAINFALL RATE IN JAPAN
Availability Rain fall Rate (mm/hr) YR (dB/km) 1.25
99.9% 22 10.9
99.99% 63 23.2
6
E
1.0
ill,
99.999% 120 36.9 c:

&
� 075
fitting equations or a set of specified values given in ::<
E
Recommendation P. 838-2 [ 8]. The effects of fading, such as 0.5 = 10 dBm,99.99%
:J

.§ -- Tx
mUlti-path fading, are important factors in wireless systems; 1ij -- Tx = 10 dBm,99.999%
� Tx = 30 dBm, Fair
::<
however, for a MMW wireless link, usually the directivity of
0.25 � Tx = 30 dBm,99.9%
••• •••

. �. . Tx = 30 dBm,99.99%
••• •••

the antenna is very good, and a line-of-sight link is required.

�,,�·" �"·�"� �::�
• . .

�; �"·�T�X �= �30�d�B��9�9.�
99�
9'�
050 60 �
Thus, the effect of mUlti-path fading could be ignored in the __ · "� m, �
��
system link margin design. Based on (1), the maximum 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160
G G (dB)
achievable transmission link could be estimated if the received
+
n< RX

power is set to be equal to the receiver sensitivity for each Fig. 6. Achievable wireless transmission distance.
signal transmission. The range depends on the design link
margin and the amount of attenuation due to rainfall. It relates
IV. CONCLUSION
to the operation rate or availability concept. Additionally, rain
attenuation is considered to be the dominant factor that A radio access network has been proposed for

degrades the system performance and limits operational communication on high-speed trains using RoRoF and linearly

availability in many regions. Therefore, it should be treated located DAS system. A proof-of-concept system of radio­

carefully when designing an MMW system. In such a case, the over-fiber and millimeter-wave wireless for radio signal

system availability could be estimated using the statistical data transmission has been demonstrated. A stable and satisfactory

of the rainfall over a long period of time, and a specific performance is achieved for a L TE-A signal transmission. The

rainfall rate could be defined for each required availability range of the MMW link could be further enlarged by using

ratio. From the determined rainfall rate, the rain attenuation high-gain antennas and a high-output power amplifier. A

could be calculated using (2). Examples of link availability wireless transmission distance of approximately one kilometer

and corresponding rainfall rate and rain attenuation for the could be realized by high-gain antennas and/or high-output

operation in Japan are shown in Table II [32]. Fig. 6 shows the power amplifier. The proposed system is especially suitable

estimated distance for different gain values of the transceiver for applications such as delivery of broadband

antenna when an L TE-A signal using 64-QAM modulation are communications to high-speed trains due to its simplicity, and

transmitted. A transmit power of 10 dBm and 30 dBm, and a stable and satisfactory performance. The achievable

link margin of 8 dB are assumed in this case, and the received transmission distance is suitable for such a communication.

power for each transmission is obtained experimentally, as

shown in Fig. 5 (c). The obtained values are measured at a 1-
m wireless distance; however, it is believed that the use of the
antennas to increase the transmission range
deteriorate the transmission characteristics [9].
figure, it could be observed that a transmission range of
approximately 1 km for the MMW link could be realized
using either the high-gain antenna, and/or high-output power
amplifier. This achievable transmission distance is sufficiently
long for practical application to connect the RAUs and the
TAUs. It should be noted that a high-power amplifier based on
GaN has been reported to generate an output power of 30
dBm, thus a transmit power of 30 dBm as in the figure could
be realized. Recently, a 40-dBm power amplifier based on
vacuum-tube electronics has been also reported
addition, a total gain of 100 dB has been realized practically
using a 50-dBi Cassegrain-type antenna at the transmitter and
receiver [11].
REFERENCES
[I] P. T. Dat et aI.,OFC 2013,Jth2A.61,Mar. 2013.
does not
[2] Q. Lou et aI., EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications
From the
and Networking 2012,2012:285.
[3] S. Seyedi et aI., IEEE Conference on Acoustics, Speed and
Signal Processing,Mar. 2008.
[4] C. E. Shannon, "A mathematical theory of communication," Bell
Syst. Tech.. J.,vol. 27,pp. 379-423,Jul. 1948.
[5] T. Kawanishi et. ai, IEEE J. Sel. Topics Quantum Electron., vol.
13,no. 1,pp. 79-91,Jan.lFeb. 2007.
[6] 3GPP TR 36.913 V9.0.0 (2009-12), "Requirements for Further
advancements of E-UTRA (LTE_Advanced),".
[7] U. Gliese et aI., IEEE Transaction on Microwave Theory and
Techniques,Vol. 44,No. 10,pp. 1716-1724,1996.
[8] ITU-R P.838-2 Recommendation (2003).
[10]. In
[9] Akihiko Hirata et aI., IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Techn,
Vol. 54,No. 5,May. 2006,pp. 1937-1944.
[10] Y. Hu et aI., in Proc. IEEE Int. Vac. Electron. Conf. Tech. Dig.,
Monterey,CA,Apr. 2012,pp. 295-296.
[11] A. Kanno et aI., in Proc. IEEE Summer Topical Meeting, pp.
145-146,2012.

978'1-4799-3869-8/14/$31.00 ®2014 IEEE