60-GHz Ultra-Wideband Radio-Over-Fiber System Using a Novel Photonic Monocycle Generation

An impulse-radio ultra-wideband (UWB) photonic generation system targeting high user density in-flight communications with simultaneous ranging capabilities in the 60-GHz radio band is proposed and demonstrated experimentally and the implementation cost is analyzed. Impulse-radio UWB monocycles are employed for signaling. The monocycles are generated employing a pulsed laser and a differential photoreceiver with phase shifting. Optical frequency up-conversion is performed employing a low-frequency RF carrier and a Mach-Zehnder electrooptical modulator operating in the nonlinear regime. In the experiment, Gaussian monocycles at a 1.244-Gbit/s data rate with 3.8-GHz bandwidth are generated and up-converted to 57 GHz. The performance of the 57-GHz UWB signal after the transmission over a standard single-mode fiber at in-cabin distances up to 100 m is studied. The experimental results show that good quality UWB pulses can be obtained with the proposed system. The impact of the system parameters on performance including wireless transmission and associated cost is analyzed, indicating that a high number of UWB access nodes can be cost-effectively supported by the proposed system.