10Gbit/s MSK Modulation for Radio-over-Fiber

System
Ning Zhang, Chunning Hou, Li Tao, Bo Huang, Xinying Li, Nan Chi
Department of Communication Science and Engineering , and State Key Lab of ASIC & System
Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
nanchi@fudan.edu.cn
AbstractIn this paper, We propose a single sideband RoF
system based on MSK modulation. One sideband of terahertz
wave undergoes the single sideband MSK modulation while the
terahertz wave is obtained via carrier-suppression double

sideband modulation. The BER performance achieves [ and
the sensitivity of the receiver is -17.8dBm with a data rate of
5Gb/s after 40km transmission.

II.

SIMULATION AND RESULTS DISCUSSION

A. Modeling and system configuration

Figure 1 shows the proposed scheme of RoF system with
MSK modulation. Figure 2 presents the details of our MSK
scheme.

Keywords-RoF; MSK; SSB; THz; homodyne detection

I.

INTRODUCTION

The increased demand of bandwidth for fast data

transmission applications requires the transformation of
communication systems to higher carrier frequencies. THzwave radio transmission will probably be restricted to shortrange pico-cellular indoor communication systems, due to the
high absorption by water vapor in the atmosphere and
increased free-space losses [1]. Radio over fiber (RoF) is one
of the most attractive technologies for these systems with its
numerous advantages including high reliability, huge
bandwidth, low loss and being immune to interference [2].
Figure 1. MSK-RoF system simulation setup

The optical Minimum-Shift Keying (MSK) modulation

format belongs to the class of continuous-phase modulation.
The phase of MSK signal is continuous over time and changes


       
   
 
constant. Due to these features in MSK signal, it exhibits
narrower power spectrum when comparing with a binary
phase-shift keying (BPSK). And its high spectrum efficiency
(SE) is comparable to DQPSK, while retaining the same
receiver sensitivity as differential binary phase shift keying
(DPSK) [3].
In this paper, we present a novel scheme of RoF system to
reduce dispersion of RF power penalties when transmitting
data at THz frequencies while obtaining higher SE with MSK.
In the scheme, THz-wave is obtained via carrier-suppression
DSB modulation, and one of the sidebands undergoes the
second baseband SSB modulation in the process of data
modulation in MSK format, which achieves cascade SSB
modulation [2]. As to MSK, we introduce a heterodyne
detection scheme for its better resistance to the phase noise
caused by the laser in the receiver and the simpler
configuration. It is proved by simulation that this scheme of
RoF system is effective to overcome the chromatic dispersion
and nonlinear effects.

978-1-4244-7113-3/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

Figure 2. MSK modulator for one of the sidebands

A dual-arm LiNbO3 Mach-Zehnder modulator (LN-MZM)

biased at V and driven by two complementary 5 GHz clocks is
used to generate optical mm-wave via sub-carrier multiplexing
(SCM), including one sub-carrier modulated in MSK format.
After a span of standard single mode fiber (SSMF) and
corresponding dispersion compensation fiber (DCF)
transmission, the beating RF signal is generated at 10 GHz by
the photodiode detection in BS (electrical spectrum shown in
Figure 1). For bit-error-rate (BER) measuring, the local
oscillator (LO) of 10 GHz and mixers are used to down-convert
the electrical mm-wave signal to baseband signal.

447

In the MSK modulator, the RoF sideband signal and

triangular wave drive the first MZ modulator. Then the output
is divided into two branches, each of which drives one MZ
modulator with one of the two branches of the precoded data
signal. And the two MZ modulators produce the I and Q
components respectively. MSK signal is obtained by coupling
the two components together.

LL

As to the homodyne detection of MSK, the MSK signal is

coupled with the local laser by the 90-degree hybrid coupler.
With the different phase shift for the In-phase and Quadrature
components, the phase information contained in the MSK
signal can be transferred to the intensity information. Then the
original data can be recovered with appropriate thresholds
setting in I and Q components respectively.

LLL

B. Simulation and analysis

(a)

(b)

Figure 4. BER performance in the case of (i) back to back, (ii) 20km and (iii)
40km transmission respectively, the insets are the eye diagrams of I and Q
branches for each case

III.

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

CONCLUSION

In this paper, we demonstrate an effective MSK scheme for

RoF system. BER is measured under different received power
and transmission length. The BER achieves 1x10-9 while the
sensitivity of the receiver is -17.8dBm with a data rate of 5Gb/s
in a transmission span of 40km. Only about 0.5dB power
penalty is incurred after 40km SMF span. It is obvious that
MSK is a competitive candidate for the promising RoF systems
in the near future.
REFERENCES
[1]

Figure 3. Spectrums of the optical signals in the system

Figure 3 shows the spectrums of the optical signals in the

system.

[2]

We measure the BER curve versus received optical power

in back-to-back link, 20km and 40km fiber link transmission
respectively (in Figure 4). It is hopeful that the RoF link could
be over 30km to maintain the power penalty less than 0.5dB
without DCF. And we can tell from the eye diagrams that only
slight transmission impairments are introduced in case of MSK
signal being transmitted through 40km SMF and the phase
distortion is not very serious. This is due to the high SE of
MSK format which reduces the impact of nonlinear effects in
the fiber.

[3]

[4]

[5]

Identify applicable sponsor/s here. If no sponsors, delete this text box.

(sponsors)

448

P. Radoslaw, J. Christian, M. Daniel, K. Thomas, K. Martin, K. Thomas,

 
 !
"      
  #$% '
 

" * +666 #ransactions on Antennas and Propogation, papers
55(11), 3002-3009 (2007).
C. Hou, Y. Shao, X. Liu, X. Zheng, X. Li, S. Zou, N. Chi, Dual-level
optical single side band modulation scheme for 0.1 tera Hz radio-overFiber systems*, Proceedings of SPIE, v 7632, 2009.
G. Luo, S. Takahide, C. Akito, K. Tetsuya, M. Tetsuya, H. Kaoru, I.
Junichiro, 80-Gb/s optical MSK generation using a monolithically
integrated quad-mach-zehnder IQ modulator*, OFC/NFOEC 2010, 2010.
J. Mo, Y. Wen, Y. Wang, C. Lu, W. ;
 6< 
"  
optical mini   = "
 *, Journal of Lightwave
Technology, vol. 25, NO.10, Oct. 2007.
M. Ohm, J.    >  
-shift keying with direct
   
?\\^*, APOC 2003, pp. 5281-23, Nov. 2003.