Transmission of RF and microwave signals by optical fiber

This work describes the different indoor applications and relative device requirements of the transmission of microwave or RF signals by optical fiber means. Systems are based on the picocell distribution scheme, which uses the remote antenna concept consisting in a base station, which optically feeds several remote antenna units. Two kinds of systems can be distinguished. The first one deals with RF signals in the 1 GHz to 5 GHz frequency band and is mainly dedicated to the optical transport of mobile communication bands (GSM, UMTS, Hiperlan). The second one is more advanced and is based on an optically generated microwave or even millimeter wave signal (40 GHz and 60 GHz frequency bands); the achievable data bitrate could be then as high as several hundred of Mbits/s.