Distribution of OFDM-UWB radio signals along LR-PONs using chirp-managed lasers

The use of chirp-managed lasers (CML) for the distribution of OFDM-UWB radio signals in long-reach fiber-to-the-home passive optical networks (LR-PONs) is a cost-effective solution to extend the coverage of these signals in future wireless personal area networks (WPAN). Through numerical simulation, this paper analyzes the feasibility of the distribution of OFDM-UWB radio signals in LR-PONs using CML. The performance degradation of the transmission of OFDM-UWB signals is assessed in terms of the bit error ratio (BER) and, for a minimum BER of 10^-4, the CML-based transmission achieves an improvement of 11 km in the maximum transmission distance compared to the use of a directly modulated laser.