Transmission of 4096-QAM OFDM at D-band

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate the transmission of multi-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) millimeter wave signals at D-band. Meanwhile, the system nonlinearity analysis is also given, which is originated from the unsatisfactory optoelectronic devices, multi-order QAM and the high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of OFDM signal. To alleviate the system nonlinearity, Volterra nonlinearity compensation (VNC) is adopted. Probabilistic shaping (PS) has been regarded as an effective approach to ensure the system robustness. By using the technologies of probabilistic shaping and Volterra nonlinearity compensation, 57.21-Gbit/s 4096-QAM OFDM signal at 117 GHz can be delivered over 13.42-m wireless distance in our experiment, achieving the normalized general mutual information (NGMI) threshold of 0.83 with 25% soft-decision forward-error correction (SD-FEC) overhead. In addition, we simulated the D-band millimeter wave simulation system in VPI software. The NGMI performance between conventional and discrete Fourier transform-spread (DFT-S) 16-QAM OFDM has been compared in simulation at the same optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR). The case of conventional 16-QAM OFDM has better performance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of transmission of multi-order QAM OFDM millimeter wave signal at D-band using PS and VNC methods.