Increasing the Spectral Efficiency of DDO-CE-OFDM Systems by Multi-Objective Optimization

A multi-objective optimization was implemented to increase the spectral efficiency of direct-detection optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems with constant-envelope (CE) signals. Based on a genetic algorithm, the optimization procedure evaluates the impact of fiber injection power in the reduction of the guard band between the optical carrier and the CE-OFDM signals, optimizing important parameters such as electrical phase modulation and optical modulation indices of the denominated DDO-CE-OFDM system. Simulation results show that a guard-band reduction around 40% was achieved in a 4 Gbps optimized DDO-CE-OFDM system with 16-QAM subcarrier mapping and -7 dBm fiber input power. Results obtained in an experimental proof-of-concept conducted to validate the optimization procedure show that this reduction can reach 66% according to a power penalty of ≈2 dB demanded by the inherent spectral broadening of CE-OFDM signals, after propagation over 40 km of standard single-mode fiber.