Performance Comparison of Coherent versus Incoherent Direct

Sequence Optical Code Division Multiple Access System

Amel Farhata,d, Mourad Menifb, Catherine Lepersc, Houria Reziga, Philippe Galliond
a
Ecole Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Tunis, Laboratoire SYSCOM, BP.37, Le Belvédère,
1020, Tunisia.
b
Ecole Supérieure des Communications, U.R. CIRTACOM, Route de Raoued Km 3.5,
2083 El Ghazala - Ariana – Tunisia
c
Laboratoire PhLAM, CNRS UMR 8523, Université de Lille, 59650 Villeneuve d’Ascq, France
d
Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications, TELECOM ParisTech, CNRS LTCI UMR
5141, 46 Rue Barrault 75013 Paris, France

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we compare the performances of a coherent versus incoherent Direct Sequence Optical Code Division
Multiple Access (DS-OCDMA) system. Superstructured Fiber Bragg Grating (S-FBG) encoders/decoders are used to
implement unipolar codes such as Prime Sequence (PS) and Extended Quadratic Codes (EQC) codes. We implement the
Importance Sampling (IS) technique, which is a variant of the well-known Monte-Carlo (MC) method, to evaluate the
Bit Error Rate (BER) performances of the system. Our simulation results depict that coherent system outperforms the
incoherent one. The last system can be used but a BER floor is demonstrated due to the beat noise of the incoherent
source. We show that increasing bit rate leads to a deterioration of the BER behavior and requiring an increase of the
optical bandwidth of the signal.
Keywords: DS-OCDMA, unipolar codes, coherent source, Monte Carlo, Importance Sampling, beat noise.

1. INTRODUCTION
The Optical Code Division Multiple Access (OCDMA) technique has recently received substantial interest for the future
generation of optical access networks. This could be explained by huge bandwidth offered by the optical fiber, the
possibility of sharing the optical resources (source, fiber, etc…) over many users and of using Fiber Bragg Grating
(FBG) technology for the encoding and decoding of transmitted data. The OCDMA is a multiple access technique which
consists on assigning signature codes providing asynchronous access to several users [1]. Many configurations of
OCDMA systems have been proposed and studied depending on the code dimension. Direct Sequence (DS) [2] and
Frequency Encoding (FE) [3] OCDMA solutions use one-dimensional code in time and frequency domain respectively
while Fast-Frequency Hopping (FFH) OCDMA system considers two dimensional time and wavelength codes [4]. The
OCDMA systems can use either coherent (Laser, Super-Continuum Laser and Mode Locked Laser, etc…) or incoherent
(LED, ASE from EDFA and SOA, etc…) optical sources. In order to reduce the Multiple Access Interference (MAI), the
codes must exhibit low cross-correlation level [1]. For the Direct-Detection DS-OCDMA system, many optical codes
could be used such as Optical Orthogonal Codes (OOC), Prime Sequence (PS) codes, Quadratic Codes (QC) and
Extended Quadratic Codes (EQC). For these codes the low cross-correlation property is usually achieved through the use
of very long code sequences. In [5], the PS codes have been shown to support many simultaneous users with shorter
code length but, they suffer from high cross-correlation level. In addition, the PS codes are more sensitive to coherence
impairments than EQC and QC codes [6].
Many test beds have been done to evaluate OCDMA system performances. In Ref.[6], Fsaifes et al. implement a
coherent DS-OCDMA system using periodic PS codes with superstructured FBGs, which behave as multipath
interferometers. Indeed, the coherence impairments induce strong multipath beat noise (MBN) which impacts the system
performances. It was demonstrated in [7] that the same system, using sparser and non-periodic EQC codes, is less
sensitive to MBN. It is important to mention, that in two works, the encoders/decoders are uniform superstructured

Photonics North 2008, Réal Vallée, Michel Piché, Peter Mascher, Pavel Cheben, Daniel Côté,
Sophie LaRochelle, Henry P. Schriemer, Jacques Albert, Tsuneyuki Ozaki, Eds., Proc. of SPIE
Vol. 7099, 70991N, (2008) · 0277-786X/08/$18 · doi: 10.1117/12.806880

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 FBGs having Full-Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) bandwidth 1.6 nm at 2.5 Gbps leading to a very weak spectral
efficiency of 0.0125 bit/s/Hz.
Ayotte et al. compared, in [8,9], coherent versus incoherent source for Spectral Amplitude Coding (SAC-OCDMA) and
FFH-OCDMA systems. They demonstrated experimentally that coherent system offers better bit error rate (BER)
performances than the incoherent case. In their system, high performances are ensured by using a multi-laser source
array instead of sharing the same incoherent source. In addition, it is important to mention that the same optical
bandwidth for the encoders and decoders was used for the two different optical sources configurations leading to the
same spectral efficiency of the system. However, incoherent system reveals to be less expensive than coherent one and
could operate with appropriate BER conditions (10-9 limitation). BER floor limitation of the incoherent system is caused
by the beating of the different optical frequencies of the signal bandwidth.
To predict system performances, it is common to develop simulations of the system in order to optimize system
parameters. Many simulation techniques can be used to determine system performances in term of Bit Error Rate such as
the Gaussian Approximation (GA) and the Monte- Carlo (MC) techniques. But considering the variance of the noise,
essentially MAI variance, the GA overestimates the true performances. In fact, to determine variance of MAI, it
considers delay-averaged value of the cross-correlation between codes [4]. While MC technique, which is a statistical
method used to model the real system, requires a large number of samples to estimate very low values of BER. In order
to decrease the number of simulations involved in BER estimation, it is possible to use the Importance Sampling (IS)
technique. It consists on increasing the number of errors in an artificial way by biasing the input distribution of the noise
[10]. The objective of the IS technique is to consider the events from Gaussian distribution tails more frequently. This
modification in the distribution is later on corrected by weighting the samples [11].
In Section 2 of this paper, we present the simulated DS-OCDMA system and validate the Importance Sampling
technique by comparison with Monte-Carlo one. In section 3, we compare the performances of coherent and incoherent
DS-OCDMA system and we validate our simulation results by experimental measurements. Thermal Noise (TN), Shot
Noise (SN), Dark current Noise (DN) and Beat Noise (BN) are considered in this analysis in addition to MAI. Finally,
conclusions and perspectives are given in section 4.

2. SYSTEM AND SIMULATION MODELING

2.1 DS-OCDMA system description
Figure 1 shows the block diagram of the DS-OCDMA system. The transmitter is composed of a laser source for the
coherent DS-OCDMA system or a broadband source for the incoherent DS-OCDMA system. The sources are modulated
to generate train of 50 ps pulses via an external intensity modulator at the data repetition rate of 2.5 Gbps with low duty-
cycle RZ signal. The resulting pulse train is modulated afterward by the user’s data, encoded by Superstructured FBGs
(SFBGs) with a FWHM bandwidth 1.6 nm and transmitted through a three-port circulator.

B! D

EUCO(TGL

00101010
V1GPVOLK
DGC2OU
qGcOL CTLCflT

Fig. 1. Architecture of a DS-OCDMA system.

The SFBGs will temporally slice one incoming optical pulse or bit into several pulses or chips where the positions of the
pulses are determined by the ON–OFF-keying spreading codeword assigned to each transmitter. The encoded pulse
trains coming from different users are then combined, amplified and transmitted to the network.
Many optical codes could be implemented using such arrangement. Among them, unipolar codes characterized by 3
parameters (L, ω, N) with L the code length, ω its weight i.e. number of chips with ‘1’ in the code and N is the
multiplexing capacity. In our simulations, we have considered a quadratic detection DS-OCDMA system using PS and

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 EQC codes with p = 3, where p is a prime number. The length of PS and EQC codes are p2 and p(2p-1) respectively i.e.
9 and 15.
At the receiver, the encoded data are decoded after removing the time spreading and gathering all chip energy into a
single pulse. The optical pulse is converted into electrical signal by a photo-detector. The electrical signal is then
integrated over one chip time duration Tc. The decision circuit compares the received power to a threshold in order to
extract the transmitted data [6].
2.2 Simulation modeling
Several techniques are used to estimate BER performances of a quadratic detection DS-OCDMA system such as
Gaussian Approximation, Monte-Carlo and Importance Sampling methods.
2.2.1 Gaussian Approximation
To simplify the analysis, Gaussian Approximation (GA) is currently performed to calculate the probability of error.
However, this analysis is only valid if a large number of users is considered [1]. Assuming interfering users are
statistically independent, the MAI variance is determined by [4]:

σ MAI
2
= (k − 1)σ 2 , (1)

with k is the number of interfering users and σ is the average over all cross-correlation between different pair codes.
2

Therefore, Signal to Interference Ratio (SIR) can be estimated by:

p2
SIR =
σ MAI
2
(2)
with p is the weight of the code. Thus, the probability of error, without considering other sources of noises, is given by:

(
Pe = Q SIR . ) (3)

where Q(.) is the error function. Since the number of interferers, used in our simulations, is small (N=3) and we did not
know which codes will be active at any given time, the GA will overestimate true system performances.
2.2.2 Monte Carlo Technique
In order to avoid the GA’s drawback, we can use Monte-Carlo (MC) technique. It is a statistical technique allowing the
modeling of a real digital communication system in order to measure its performances [11]. After encoding/decoding
process, the binary data pass through a block decision and then the emitted and received sequences are compared. The
simulation MC counts the number of errors. It achieves realistic estimations of optical communication system
performances. However, this technique requires a large number of simulation trials to estimate the BER in a reasonable
interval of confidence [12]. Therefore, huge simulation run time is required to evaluate low BER values.
The error probability for communication system can be defined as:

1⎡ ⎤
Pe = ⎢∑ P(1 / 0 ) (r ) + ∑ P(0 / 1) (r )⎥, (4)
2 ⎣ D1 D0 ⎦
with P(1/0), P(0/1) are the conditional probability distribution under statistical binary hypotheses Hi (H0 space is transmitted
and H1 mark is transmitted), ri the random sample and Di is the region of decision for Hi. In MC simulation, the error
probability is estimated as the ratio of the number of errors versus the number of considered samples [12].
N MC
∧ 1
PMC =
N MC
∑ I (r ),
i =1
i (5)

with I(ri)=1 if ith bit is error and I(ri)=0 if the ith bit is correct, and NMC represents the number of samples.

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 The variance of the MC estimator is defined by:
Pe (1 − Pe )
σ MC
2
= . (6)
N MC
2.2.3 Importance Sampling Technique
The computation of error probabilities via MC simulations require a huge number of samples and therefore is not
practical for estimating very low values of error probabilities [10]. To overcome this constraint of the MC method, it is
possible to use Importance Sampling (IS) technique. IS is a modified MC technique used in simulation to determine low
probability events. The main idea of the method is to consider events from important regions more frequently [11]. The
IS technique consists on modifying the statistics of the probability density function (PDF) f of the input random process.
Conventional and Improved Importance Sampling techniques have been introduced in order to modify the original PDF
[11]. As the modification of the original PDF is done by increasing the variance scheme, Conventional Importance
Sampling (CIS) is implemented. Improved Importance Sampling (IIS) technique is based on optimized translations of
the mean of the original PDF by a constant which will be chosen in order to obtain a better BER estimator by
minimizing its variance [11]. The IS estimator is given by [12]:

1⎡ ⎤
⎢∑ P(1 / 0 ) w(r H 0 ) + ∑ P(0 / 1) w(r H 1 )⎥,
∧
PIS = * *
(7)
2 ⎣ D1 D0 ⎦
where P*(1/0), P*(0/1) are respectively the modified conditional probability distributions and w(r/Hi) is the weight
associated with the random sample ri that is generated with equal probability from the modified densities P* under Hi,
i=0, 1. Therefore, the IS estimator has a variance given by:

W − Pe2
σ IS2 = , (8)
N IS
where the quantity W is defined in [12]. As IIS technique is more adapted to systems with memory [11], which is not our
case, we choose to implement the CIS technique.
2.3 Importance Sampling Validation
Before simulation, we have to select first noise sources in which IS will be applied. Then, noise source distributions are
varied by increasing their variance. In OCDMA system, MAI and BN are well-known main sources of degradation of
the performances of the system. As the number of interferers is small in the experimental case considered here (PS code
with small weight (ω=3)), we cannot implement IS for the MAI. It is the reason why we have generated the data of all
users including the interferers. Thus, we apply the IS technique for the beat noise. To calculate the modified BN variance
[11], we use the parameter α which has a value in the interval [0, 1[:
σ BN
σ∗ = , (9)
1−α
with σBN is the original BN variance.
In order to optimize BER curves, the parameter α has to be carefully chosen. Fig. 2 shows the variation of BER versus α
for a coherent DS-OCDMA system using PS codes. The FBGs used to implement the encoders/decoders are SFBGs
which exhibit a FWHM bandwidth ∆λ=1.6 nm representing the optical bandwidth Bo used in our simulation. We assume
that all noise sources generated in the receiver such as TN, DN, SN and BN are Gaussian noise sources characterized by
their variances. For the simulation, we have used a random bit sequence of 1000 bits. We note that for α equal to 0.85,
small values of BER are reached.

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 -6
10

-7
10

-8
10

-9
10

-10

BER
10

-11
10

-12
10

-13
10

-14
10
0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95
α

Fig. 2. Optimization of α parameter for IS technique applied to a DS-OCDMA system with PS codes.
To show the advantages of IS method versus MC method; it is possible to evaluate their performances for the same
number of samples. Fig. 3 illustrates the BER performances versus the received optical power for the coherent DS-
OCDMA system with the same parameters as above. Simulation results show that with MC simulations, we get a BER
around 10-3 however IS method reaches a BER lower than 10-10. This demonstrates that results obtained with IS
technique are more relevant even with small length of bit sequence.

0
10
MC
IS
-2
10

-4
10

-6
BER

10

-8
10

-10
10

-12
10
-36 -34 -32 -30 -28 -26 -24
Average received power (dBm)

Fig. 3. Validation of IS method versus MC method for a DS-OCDMA system with PS codes.

3. COMPARISON OF COHERENT VERSUS INCOHERENT DS-OCDMA SYSTEM

In this section, we present simulations obtained in both configurations for the DS-OCDMA system. With the aim to
reduce the system cost, it seems realistic to think to use an incoherent source which can be spectrally sliced over several
DS-OCDMA sub-systems.
We suppose hereafter that all noise sources are present. For the coherent DS-OCDMA system, signal-spontaneous beat
term (S-Sp) and the spontaneous-spontaneous beat term (Sp-Sp) due to the amplification of the signal are considered.
Their variances are respectively given by [13]:

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 Be
σ s −sp = 2GI s I sp , (10)
Bo
1 Be (2 Bo − Be )
σ sp − sp = I sp2 , (11)
2 Bo2
where G is the optical amplifier gain, Is and Isp are the photo-currents generated respectively by the signal and the
spontaneous emission at the output of the optical amplifier, Be refers to the electrical filter bandwidth which is fixed to
0.7 times the bit rate.
With the incoherent source, a third noise term, called signal-signal beat noise (S-S), must be included to represent the
noise generated by beating of the Amplified Spontaneous Emissions (ASE) signal at different frequencies of the optical
bandwidth [13]. The variance of this noise is defined by:

σ s−s =
1
2
(GI sp ) B (2 BB − B ) .
2 e o
2
e
(12)
o

Fig. 4 gives BER performances for both coherent and incoherent DS-OCDMA systems using the PS codes at 2.5 Gbps.
The FBGs have a FWHM bandwidth 1.6 nm and the amplifier gain is 20 dB. We notice that for low level power, the
BER performances are the same for both coherent and incoherent system. In fact in this case, the thermal noise is the
major contributor [13]. But for higher level of power, coherent system outperforms the incoherent one. Indeed, the BER
performances of the incoherent DS-OCDMA system are limited by beat noise due to the signal to signal beat noise
caused by incoherent optical sources.

0
10
Incoh. source
coh. source
-2
10

-4
10

-6
BER

10

-8
10

-10
10

-12
10
-30 -25 -20 -15 -10 -5
Average received power (dBm)

Fig. 4. Performances comparison of coherent versus incoherent DS-OCDMA system at 2.5 Gbps using PS codes as function
of average received power.
3.1 BER performance comparison using PS and EQC codes
In Fig. 5, BER performances of both coherent and incoherent DS-OCDMA system using EQC codes are shown. For the
coherent case, we compare simulation results with experimental ones obtained in [6]. This comparison depicts some
discrepancies between simulation and experimental results (~5 dB for 2.5 Gbps at 10-9). This can be explained by the
fact that we do not consider Multipath Beat Noise (MBN) related to the design of the encoder/decoder. We note also a
BER floor for the incoherent system for high average optical received power values.

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 0
10
Coherent source(simulation)
Coherent source(measure)
Incoherent source(simulation)

-5
10

-10

BER
10

-15
10

-20
10
-34 -32 -30 -28 -26 -24 -22 -20 -18 -16 -14
Average received power (dBm)

Fig. 5. Coherent versus incoherent DS-OCDMA system performances at 2.5 Gbps using EQC codes .Comparison between
simulation and experimental results for the coherent case.
By comparing Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, we can see the impact of the choice of the code family on the BER performances.
Firstly, we note a power penalty of 6dB at 10-10 for the coherent case using PS codes compared to the EQC code. We
then observe that for the incoherent source, the BER floor is around 10-5 using PS codes and is around 10-15 for the EQC
codes. In fact, EQC codes offer better correlation parameters than PS codes ones leading to systems less sensitive to
MAI.
As incoherent systems seem interesting to be considered, we study hereafter the impact of the considered bit rate and the
optical bandwidth on the incoherent system performances in order to enhance its spectral efficiency.
3.2 Impact of the bit rate on BER performances of an incoherent DS-OCDMA system
To study the impact of the bit rate on system performances, we give Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) expression for the high
level power (the signal-signal beat noise is dominant and Be<<Bo) [13]:
B0
SNR ≈ . (13)
Be
Equation (13) confirms that the performances of the incoherent optical communication systems are limited by the ratio
Bo/Be [13]. To improve this ratio, we have to increase the useful optical bandwidth or to decrease the bit rate.
In Fig.6, BER performances for incoherent DS-OCDMA system using EQC codes for the optical bandwidth Bo=0.4 nm
and at 622 Mbps, 1.25 Gbps and 2.5 Gbps bit rates are shown. Increasing the bit rate (the electrical bandwidth) and
maintaining the optical bandwidth constant leads to decreasing the performances of the system.

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 0
10
2.5 Gbps
1.25 Gbps
622 Mbps

-5
10

-10

BER
10

-15
10

-20
10
-35 -30 -25 -20 -15
Average received power (dBm)

Fig. 6. Performances of incoherent DS-OCDMA system for Bo=0.4 nm for different bit rates using EQC codes.

4. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have implemented for the first time the Importance Sampling technique instead of the common Monte
Carlo technique to evaluate Bit Error Rate performances of coherent and incoherent DS-OCDMA systems.. The
performances of DS-OCDMA coherent system have been compared to incoherent one using PS and EQC codes. Due to
their good correlation properties, EQC codes are interesting to be considered. In addition, we have studied the impact of
the electrical bandwidth on an incoherent system using EQC codes and we have shown that relaxing bit rate constraint it
is possible to consider an incoherent system with acceptable BER performances.

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