Comparative Performance of Nonlinear Distortion Effects in an OFDM-RoF Link

Recently, the integration of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and radio over fiber (RoF) technique emerged the possibility of cost-effective and high data rate ubiquitous wireless networks. However, the nonlinear effects can severely degrade the performance of RoF as well as OFDM system. In this paper, the performance of OFDM-based RoF link with Mach-Zehnder modulator nonlinearity effects have been analyzed and simulated and then compared with single-carrier modulation case. Later, offset biased pre-distortion technique is applied in the OFDM-RoF link to produce a pre-distorted Mach-Zehnder modulator input voltage. Simulation results showed important observations in terms of distortion-free dynamic range and signal to noise ratio (SNR) for the applied offset biased pre-distortion technique