Q-Factor Based Performance Analysis of PMD Measurement Methods

In this contribution the performance of two methods for monitoring the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) of a transmission line without data traffic interruption are analyzed and compared using numerical simulations. The monitored PMD is used as control signal to set a PMD compensator and the Q- factor after the compensator is taken to assess the performance of the monitoring method. It is shown for the first time that an accurately measured PMD does not necessarily result in an optimal setting of a feed-forward compensator and vice versa.