Monitoring of Power Over Fiber Signals Using Intercore Crosstalk in ARoF 5G NR Transmission

Power over Fiber (PoF) needs safe and resilient operation of the infrastructure. In this article, we propose a new crosstalk-based remote monitoring technique of PoF signals in Spatial Division Multiplexing optical networks with no additional consumption at the remote radio head (RRH). We demonstrate this technique in a 250 m 7-core Multicore Fiber (MCF) transmitting three multiplexed 256 QAM 5G NR optical signals with a total throughput of 1.8 Gbps, a low-speed communications channel between a Central Office and a RRH, and a PoF signal delivering to feed the RRH's control board. The 5G NR optical signals are received at the RRH with EVM values within the limits stablished in the 3GPP 5G standard. The low-speed communications channel remotely manages the power supplied to a Radio Frequency Power Amplifier located at the RRH. The PoF signal is used to supply up to 131 mW to the control board of the RRH. The monitoring channel can accurately follow the optical power injected into the MCF or the optical power received at the RRH thanks to a real-time algorithm and an ad-hoc Matlab application, which also allows to control the PoF source and the low-speed communications channel.