FFSS: The fast fiber simulator software

We introduce FFSS, an optical fiber simulator entirely developed in MATLAB
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which takes advantage of parallel calculation on graphic processing units (GPU). This software solves the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) - the single-mode fiber wave equation - relying on the well-known split-step Fourier method (SSFM). FFSS operates on either the PMD-Manakov equation (PMD-ME) that averages out random birefringence and polarization mode dispersion (PMD), or on the dual-polarization (DP) NLSE including random birefringence by complementing the SSFM with the waveleplate model. We present results obtained by solving the SSFM with PMD-ME. We tested and benchmarked FFSS using GPU computation on two different hardware solutions, being able to show performance improvements up to 75× for single-precision calculation and 40× for double-precision calculation with respect to the use of computing architectures relying on standard CPU-only computations. We demonstrated the capabilities of FFSS by simulating propagation of 81 PM-QPSK WDM channels on the 50 GHz grid, representing a full C-band WDM comb. We considered a uniform, uncompensated and amplified fiber link, made of 30×100 km spans of standard single-mode fiber (SSMF). We show the accuracy of simulator outcomes obtained by double-precision calculations by comparison with results obtained using theoretical modeling of fiber propagation.