An Optical OFDM Modem with Adaptive Volterra Equalizer

摘要

It addresses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission over optical links with high spectral efficiency, i.e. by using high-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) schemes as a mapping method prior to the OFDM multicarrier representation. Here we address especially coherent optical OFDM modem in long distance which is affected by nonlinear distortion caused by fiber nonlinearity. Fiber nonlinearity is a majo performance-limiting factor in advanced optical communication systems. We proposed a nonlinear electrical equalization scheme based on the Volterra model. To compare with other popular linear compensation technique such as the least mean square (LMS), simulation results are presented to demonstrate the capability of a Volterra model based electrical equalizer used in a coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system. It is shown that the Volterra model based equalizer can significantly reduce nonlinear distortion.