Impact of Optical Transmission on Multiband OFDM Ultra-Wideband Wireless System With Fiber Distribution

Multiband (MB) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless, which provides high data rate access, is required to be distributed by using optical fiber. The performance of MB-OFDM UWB over fiber transmission system is investigated considering optical modulation and demodulation impact. Theoretical analysis of the effect of fiber dispersion, optical transmitter, and optical receiver response on system performance is carried out considering amplitude and phase distortion. Experiments are conducted and verified by our theoretical analysis and good agreement is obtained. It is found that RF modulation index of ~4% is optimum for optical transmitter with Mach-Zehnder modulator, and optical receiver with Chebyshev-II response is the best for MB-OFDM UWB over fiber. Compared to back-to-back UWB over fiber, optical transmission is mainly limited by laser phase noise converted relative intensity noise and phase distortion induced by fiber dispersion when optimum modulation index is used. Higher modulation index is limited by amplitude and phase distortion to OFDM signal induced by optical transmitter and receiver response nonlinearities and fiber dispersion and the spectral mask. It is also found that highly received optical power is required for transmission of MB-OFDM UWB signal over fiber.