Millimeter-Wave Carrier Generation System for Radio over Fiber

Due to the huge demand for the mm-wave band in future communication system applications, many researchers are investigating and continue working on the generation of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) signal for radio over fiber (RoF). RoF is an expanding technology that applicable in high channel capacity, wider service coverage and broadband mm-wave access system. However, the limited availability of the RF bands require utilization of the mm-wave frequency bands to meet the obligation for higher signal bandwidth and overcome the frequency congestion in the future RoF-based optical-wireless access networks. Broadband wireless communication has introduced great interest in mm-wave bands due to its wide transmission bandwidth and also the opportunity of frequency reuse. This paper mainly focuses on the mm-wave carrier generation techniques for radio over fiber including: optical heterodyning, external modulation, optical transceiver, and up- and down-conversion.