Nonlinear Frequency Division Multiplexing for Fiber-Optic Communication

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Norbert Hanik
• Subject Area: Electronic Semiconductors, Components and Circuits, Integrated Systems, Sensor Technology, Theoretical Electrical Engineering
• Term: from 2020 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 438827315

• Final Report Year: 2023

Final Report Abstract

Even though data-rates for fiber-optic systems initially increased strongly, the growth began to saturate in recent years. In contrast, the demand for higher data-rates is projected to steadily grow with a rate of 60%-80% per year. To close this gap, several approaches to change the current transmission-paradigm were studied and presented in recent years. A now widely studied approach, is the use of the NFT, to modulate decoupled linear modes of transmission in the nonlinear Fourier domain (NFD), instead of utilizing the linear frequency domain, in which channels interact during propagation, due to fiber nonlinearity. The NFT-based modulation and detection schemes can be added by making alterations to the digital signal processing (DSP) sections of a transmitter/receiver pair. In this project several aspects of NFT-based transmission were studied, including a survey and comparison of available algorithms for the necessary transformations, the applicability of NFT-based schemes if realistic impairments are considered, the influence of (residual) fiber loss on NFDM for two popular amplification schemes for optical fiber communication, mitigation schemes for lossy channel scenarios, the use of machine-learning algorithms for improved detection at receiver side, a heuristic look at labeling for special soliton-based schemes, the improvement of existing algorithms for full nonlinear spectrum utilization, the influence of transceiver degradations due to manufacturing imperfections, the measurement of fiber parameters using the NFT, an in-depth theoretic look at simplified soliton-transmission schemes, a survey on the influence of PMD and the extension of big parts of the theory for NFT-aided systems to the strong-coupling multimode case.

Publications

• Soliton Transmission with 5 Eigenvalues over 2000km of Raman-Amplified Fiber. 2018 20th International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON). IEEE.
  Leible, Benedikt; Chen, Yingkan; Yousefi, Mansoor I. & Hanik, Norbert
  
• Clustering algorithm for detection in the discrete nonlinear Fourier spectrum. 45th European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC 2019), 209 (4 pp.)-209 (4 pp.). Institution of Engineering and Technology.
  Leible, B.; García-Gómez, F.J. & Hanik, N.
  
• Eigenvalue Trajectories in Multispan Soliton Transmission Systems under Lumped and Distributed Amplification. 2019 21st International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 1-4. IEEE.
  Leible, Benedikt & Hanik, Norbert
  
• Approaches to Bit-Labeling for Eigenvalue On-Off-Keying Systems. 2020 22nd International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 1-4. IEEE.
  Leible, Benedikt; Gottsberger, Thomas & Hanik, Norbert
  
• Back-to-Back Performance of the Full Spectrum Nonlinear Fourier Transform and Its Inverse. Entropy, 22(10), 1131.
  Leible, Benedikt; Plabst, Daniel & Hanik, Norbert
  
• Stability of the Full Spectrum Nonlinear Fourier Transform. 2020 22nd International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 1-4. IEEE.
  Leible, Benedikt; Plabst, Daniel & Hanik, Norbert
  
• Algorithms for the Nonlinear Fourier Transform in the Strong Coupling Multi-Mode Case. 2023 23rd International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 1-4. IEEE.
  Leible, Benedikt & Hanik, Norbert
  
• The Nonlinear Fourier Transform and its Extension to the Strong Coupling Multi-Mode Case. 2023 23rd International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 1-4. IEEE.
  Leible, Benedikt & Hanik, Norbert