Performance evaluation of the clustering based sequence equalizer in direct detection optical communication links

In this paper the performance of the Clustering Based Sequence Equalizer is investigated in the context of Intensity Modulated Direct Detection optical communications links operating at 10Gb/s, when non-return to zero on-off keyed and optical differential encoded phase shift keyed transmission is employed. The aforementioned equalizer provides an attractive implementation of the Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation, comprising of two successive steps, namely a) nonparametric estimation of the channel response using a cluster based approach and b) sequence estimation using the Viterbi algorithm. The performance of the cluster based equalizer in fiber links is investigated my means of computer simulation.