Long Distance Field Trial of E/W-Band Signal Wireless Delivery Based on Full Photonic Up- and Down-Conversions

The E/W band millimeter-wave (MMW) emerges as a promising frequency band with many advantages such as the possession of abundant spectrum resources, low atmospheric attenuation, and good directionality. Meanwhile, full-photonic based MMW systems offer the potential to further reduce the complexity of electronic down-conversion and enhance overall system bandwidth, and allow seamless integration with the fiber-optic network. In this paper, we proposed an E/W band MMW communication architecture based on full-photonic up- and down-conversions, utilizing a frequency- and phase-locked optical two-tone generator at both the transmitting and receiving end. We successfully demonstrated a long-distance field trial of E/W-Band wireless transmission, achieving 26.8-km wireless delivery of 32-Gb/s quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signal, and the largest net-rate-distance-product up to 745.74 Gb/s·km per antenna per channel. The long-distance transmission performance of different modulation formats was also studied. We also achieved a 22-Gb/s QPSK transmission over a longer distance of 30.4 km, with a net-rate and distance product reaching 581.56 Gb/s·km. Moreover, this paper analyzes the complex sea surface channel and experimentally verifies the influence of the sea surface environment on the channel, which is instructive for long-distance MMW sea surface communications.