End-to-End Demonstration of Fiber-Wireless Fronthaul Networks Using a Hybrid Multi-IF-Over-Fiber and Radio-Over-Fiber System

This paper reports an end-to-end demonstration of a fiber-wireless mobile fronthaul (MFH) network based on hybrid intermediate-frequency-over-fiber (IFoF) and radio-over-fiber (RoF) links using a 28-GHz millimeter-wave (MMW) band. We successfully transmitted 24 64-QAM OFDM signals with a total bandwidth of 9.12 GHz over 20-km broadband IFoF, 1-km narrowband IFoF, 500-m RoF, and 10-m free-space links with an aggregate capacity of up to 34.2 Gbps, which complies with the required peak data capacity of IMT-2020. A digital demultiplexer was exploited to flexibly perform channel selection and frequency conversion. The obtained results show the feasibility of implementing fiber-wireless systems with the hybrid IFoF/RoF links for future mobile fronthaul networks.