Optical front-end receiver configuration for 30 GHz millimeter-wave signal Radio over Fiber system

Radio over fiber (RoF) technology is proposed solution for the reducing cost and providing highly reliable communication services. The system is very cost-effective solution by localization of signal processing in central station and also uses a simple base station. In this paper, two configurations of RoF system were presented. First, the intermediate frequency (IF) frequencies are upconverted to radio frequency (RF) at the central station and the RF are transmitted over single mode fiber directly at the radio carrier frequency. In the second configuration, the IF are transmitted over single mode fiber and converted to the original RF at the optical receiver. This report is focusing on the RoF optical frontend receiver configuration at the base station or also known as optical heterodyne receiver that employing an optoelectronic mixer. In this configuration, the receiver is performing photodetection and frequency conversion simultaneously. Thorough review and comparison of the previous works on the optoelectronic mixer and frequency conversion for up to millimeter-wave band will presented. Finally, the theoretical analysis and the harmonic balance modeling of the proposed optical front-end receiver and frequency up conversion system will be discussed.