Hybrid tree-and-multiple-ring radio-over-fiber transmission system for a 5G network in metropolitan areas

Abstract

What we believe to be a novel radio-over-fiber (RoF) transmission system with a hybrid tree-and-multiple-ring network structure is developed and experimentally demonstrated to support broadband wireless signal transmission among the central office (CO) and densely distributed 5G base stations (BS) in urban areas. With the assistance of an advanced network structure and a unique single-line bidirectional optical add/drop multiplexer (SBOADM), the transmission system can utilize a hybrid tree-and-ring-topology fiber network to simultaneously support multiple 5G BS-Groups constructed as sub-ring-networks. Furthermore, the system manager is able to simultaneously utilize wavelength/time division multiplexing techniques to support the connected BSs and to dynamically embed extra sub-ring-networks to the main-ring-network or extra BSs to the sub-ring-network by using the RoF transmission system. Needing no backup fiber link, the transmission system enjoys intrinsic robust resilience against fiber link failures. Experimental results proved that the proposed RoF transmission system enables prompt recovery of interrupted optical fiber connection and guarantees the expected quality of service (QoS) by adjusting a few preinstalled optical switches when fiber link failure happens in the main-ring-network, in each sub-ring-network, or even in both of the above scenarios. The induced power penalty for maintaining unchanged bit error rate performance is less than 2 dB. In sum, the proposed transmission system proves to be a great network architecture suitable for supporting 5G signal transmission between the CO and BSs in an urban area due to the dynamically extensible network size and the well-protected transmission that ensures the QoS by simple operation.