W-band DD-OFDM-RoF system employing pilot-aided PAPR reduction

We propose and experimental demonstrate a high spectral efficiency direct-detection radio-over-fiber (DD-RoF) system in W-band. To overcome the issue of peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signals, this study proposes a pilot-aided PAPR reduction simplified from Tellado's tone reservation. Using a 10-GHz 16-QAM OFDM signal, BER was improved from 1.3 × 10
^-3
to 5.0 × 10
^-4
over 4-km fiber and 2-m wireless transmission. Using a 32-QAM OFDM signal, the pilot-aided PAPR reduction improved the data rate from 45.2 Gbps to 47.6 Gbps under FEC limits (BER=3.8 × 10
^-3
).