Performance of digital modulation formats in radio over fiber systems based on the sideband injection locking technique

Given the technical feasibility of the sideband injection locking technique for optical remote generation and control of RF signals, a performance and channel capacity study of different digital modulations formats is presented. Actual wireless networks, e.g. 3G and WiMax, and future, LTE-4G networks will require optical interconnection of base stations to cope with increasing capacity demands. More interestingly, higher frequency ISM bands, in the 30-70 GHz range, require low-cost base stations that can readily benefit from Radio over Fiber technologies. The flexibility of the technique is established and its performance assessed by simulations performed in the Virtual Photonics platform. Both, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing and Subcarrier Multiplex show promise in optimizing capacity, performance and flexibility.