Accepted Manuscript

Title: Performance Analysis of Coherent Optical

Communication System for Higher order Dual Polarization
Modulation Formats

Authors: Monika Mehra, Harsh Sadawarti, M.L. Singh

PII: S0030-4026(17)30045-1
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.ijleo.2017.01.034
Reference: IJLEO 58737

To appear in:

Received date: 22-11-2016

Revised date: 11-1-2017
Accepted date: 12-1-2017

Please cite this article as: Monika Mehra, Harsh Sadawarti, M.L.Singh, Performance
Analysis of Coherent Optical Communication System for Higher order Dual
Polarization Modulation Formats, Optik - International Journal for Light and Electron
Optics http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijleo.2017.01.034

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Performance Analysis of Coherent Optical
Communication System for Higher order Dual
Polarization Modulation Formats
Monika Mehraa,*, Dr. Harsh Sadawartib, Dr. M.L.Singhc
a
PhD Research Scholar, I. K. Gujral Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar (Punjab)
India.
b
Director, RIMT Group of Institutes, Mandi Gobindgarh (Punjab) India.
c
Professor, Department of Electronics Technology, Guru Nanak Dev University ,Amritsar
(Punjab) India.
*
Corresponding author, E-mail: monika_namya@yahoo.co.in

Abstract: The ever increasing demand of data traffic due to emerging services and applications

has evolved the need of high capacity, high speed and highly spectral efficient optical systems

with advanced modulation formats. We compare the performance of single channel coherent

optical system for 112 Gb/s with Dual polarization modulation techniques i.e. DP- QPSK(Dual

Polarization Quadrature phase shift keying), DP-16QAM(Dual Polarization -16 Quadrature

amplitude Modulation) and DP-32QAM(Dual Polarization -32 Quadrature amplitude

Modulation) with DSP (Digital Signal Processing )module for SSMF(standard single mode

fiber) in terms of tolerance to fiber nonlinearities which is investigated through the effect of

power and distance on %EVM and requirement of OSNR using numerical simulations .Results

obtained shows that the coherent optical systems with higher order modulation formats are less

tolerant to fiber nonlinearities i.e the performance of DP-QPSK coherent systems with DSP

module is better than the DP-16QAM and DP-32QAM coherent systems as they are more

tolerant to fiber nonlinearities . The results obtained can be used for the design of compensation
techniques for fiber nonlinearities in coherent optical systems using higher order modulation

formats.

Keywords: DP-QPSK, DP-16QAM, DP-32QAM, Coherent optical system, %EVM, OSNR

1. Introduction

The increased spectral efficiency is the necessity to fulfill the huge demand of capacity in fiber-

optic communication networks which s obtained by efficient utilization of the available

bandwidth in optical fibers [1-4]. The favorable approach to increase the spectral efficiency is

the use of advanced modulation formats which increase overall capacity by supporting the

encoding and transmission of multiple bits per symbol and the modulation can be in any physical

parameter such as amplitude, phase ,polarization or the combination of three[5]. The simple and

cheapest modulation format On-Off Keying (OOK) in either return to zero (RZ) or non return to

zero (NRZ) based optical transmission systems were initially used up to10-Gb/s with direct

detection systems because of its easy generation and detection but they cannot provide the

required spectral efficiency to increase the data carrying capacity of optical fibers and become

sensitive to linear and nonlinear distortions at high transmission speeds. The growing

requirement of spectral efficiency opened the doors of advanced modulation formats where the

information is not only encoded onto the amplitude of the optical signal, but also on

polarization state and the phase of the optical signal and increase the robustness against linear

and nonlinear fiber impairments[6]. Research in fiber-optic systems moved from On-Off Keying

(OOK) towards binary and quaternary phase shift keying (BPSK, QPSK) using direct detection

with differential demodulation (DPSK, DQPSK) as the increase of symbol rate of OOK

modulation format was not the appropriate solution for up gradation of the system. For 40-Gb/s,

optical systems with phase modulation and differential coding (DQPSK) were used with the
requirement of more fiber impairments tolerance which improved the spectral efficiency. For

migrating to even higher bit rate and supporting 50 GHz channel spacing (DWDM), higher

spectral efficient modulation formats are required [7]. These modulation formats enables the use

of digital coherent detection using robust digital signal processing (DSP) to perform all-

electronic chromatic and polarization-mode dispersion compensation, frequency and phase

locking and polarization demultiplexing [8]. Polarization multiplexing together with the phase

modulation is used to increase the spectral efficiency [9]. Advanced modulation formats with

coherent optical detection systems and digital signal processing (DSP) significantly increase the

spectral efficiency and the transmission capacity of optical communication systems [10-11]. The

choice of best optical modulation format depends on the requirement of the system i.e. optical

bandwidth available per channel, required spectral efficiency, required transmission distance,

requirement of capacity and requirement of optical networking [12].To access the effect of

nonlinearities in optical systems, a number of performance metrics such as eye diagram, Q

factor, SNR, bit error ratio (BER) more recently, error vector magnitude (EVM) can be used

[13]. The main figure of merit for advanced modulation formats is bit error rate(BER) .It

requires the transmission of training sequence for the performance monitoring of optical

networks. For unknown training sequences and high signal to noise ratio (SNR), Error vector

magnitude (EVM) is the best figure of merit than BER. Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) is a

measurement of modulator or demodulator performance in the presence of impairments and is

estimated from the constellation diagrams [14]. It is based on the error between the received

symbols and transmitted symbols and considers both amplitude and phase distortions. It provides

a comprehensive figure of merit for determining the performance of the optical systems [15]. In

this paper, we analyze the impact of nonlinear distortion on dual polarization coherent optical
systems with advanced modulation formats and compare the contributions of nonlinear

impairments by different systems through simulations with quality parameters of %EVM and

OSNR. The effect is also analyzed by showing the corresponding signal constellations in

complex plane.

2. Simulation setup

Fig. 1 and 2 illustrates the system model and block diagram for simulation of coherent optical

systems with advanced modulation formats. The simulation of coherent optical system with dual

polarization modulation formats is performed at 112 Gb/s. The simulation setup is categorized

into transmitter, transmission link, coherent optical receiver, DSP (Digital signal Processing)

unit, detection and decoding unit. DP-QPSK, DP-16QAM and DP-32QAM transmitters are used

to generate the signal. The transmitter converts the signal from electrical to optical, consists of

CW (Continuous Wave) laser having line width of 0.1MHz with the wavelength 193.1THz.

Polarization beam splitter split the signal of CW laser into two components: X and Y component

where each component is passed through I-Q modulator which consists of two MZM (Mach

Zehnder Modulator) to generate dual polarization QPSK and M-QAM signals which are

amplified by an amplifier of gain 16dB and noise figure 4dB .The signal then passes through the

transmission link where signals are distorted due to chromatic dispersion and nonlinear effects.

The transmission link consists of SSMF of variable length, attenuation 0.2 dB/Km, dispersion

coefficient 16 ps/nm-km and EDFA amplifier modeled with gain of 16dB with noise figure 4dB

to compensate the effect of attenuation through the fiber. At the receiver side phase and

polarization diverse coherent receiver is used to demodulate the signal which consists of

polarization splitting, phase diverse coupling and detection. The signal is received by the

coherent receivers (DP-QPSK and DP-m QAM receivers). PBS (Polarization Beam splitter) split
the received and local oscillator signals into two mutually orthogonal polarized signals

.Polarization controllers’ control the alignment of polarization of received signal and local

oscillator signal .Received signal is coupled with local oscillator signal for each polarization by

90°optical hybrids. Four balanced photo diodes detects the four optical fields .The signals

generated by mixer are converted into electrical signal after detection through balanced

detectors and passed through high speed ADC to get digital signals. As optical signals are

degraded by chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion, nonlinear effects and some

other factors such as frequency mismatch between signal and local oscillator, sampling clock

offset which are overcome by the use of digital signal processor (DSP) where effect of dispersion

is compensated by using filter, Viterbi and Viterbi phase estimation algorithm compensate the

effect of phase and frequency mismatch between the transmitter and local oscillator. The signal

is passed through the Decision circuit and BER test set after DSP. OptiSystem™, the

commercial system simulation tool for fiber optics is used for simulation

3. Results and discussions

The simulation is done to access and compare the effect of transmitted power and distance on

fiber nonlinearities in single channel RZ (return to zero)coherent optical system with advanced

modulation formats DP-QPSK, DP-16QAM and DP-32QAM) at 112Gb/s over a fiber

transmission distance from 80 to 960km using DSP. 28 Gb/s, 14 Gb/s and 11.2Gb/s are the

symbol rates for DP-QPSK, DP-16QAM and DP-32QAM coherent optical systems used in the

simulation. The signal is transmitted at a wavelength of 193.1THz . The comparison is done in

terms of Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) which is a measurement of signal quality in the

presence of the impairments and is estimated from the constellation diagrams. EVM can be

defined as the root-mean-squared (RMS) value of the difference between a collection of

measured symbols and ideal symbols. The value of the EVM is averaged over typically a large

number of symbols and it is often expressed as a percentage (%) or in dB. The EVM can be

represented as [16]

1 𝑁
∑𝑛=1|𝑆𝑟 (𝑛) − 𝑆𝑡 (𝑛)|2
𝐸𝑉𝑀𝑅𝑀𝑆 = √ 𝑁
𝑃0

where N is the number of symbols over which the value of EVM is measured, Sr(n) is the

normalized received nth symbol which is corrupted by Gaussian noise, St(n) is the

ideal/transmitted value of the nth symbol x(n), and P0 is either the maximum normalized ideal

symbol power or the average power of all symbols for the chosen modulation. If the EVM is

measured over large values of N then [16]

1
𝐸𝑉𝑀𝑅𝑀𝑆 ≈ √
𝑆𝑁𝑅

The above EVM-SNR relation, however, only holds for data-aided receivers. For non data-aided

receivers, the transmitted symbols are estimated and those estimates xˆ(n) are used to measure

the EVM value

3.1Comparison of coherent systems with different modulation formats

To analyze the comparison between the coherent systems with different modulation formats, the

effect of transmission distance and transmitted power on %EVM is visualized.

3.1.1 Effect of power on %EVM at different fiber transmission distances

The transmission performance is evaluated by varying the CW input power to see the effect of

CW input power on %EVM at a distance of 80km and 400km after dispersion compensated

optical system. Fig. 3a and 3b depicts the measured %EVM after propagation through fiber

against transmitted CW input power at a distance of 80km and 400km for DP-QSK, DP-16QAM
and DP-32QAM coherent optical system. It is observed that %EVM curve for different

modulation formats has a decreasing tendency with respect to CW input power with DP-QPSK

modulation format has less value of %EVM as compared to rest of the modulation formats and

induces less nonlinear effects both for the transmission distance of 80km and 400km.

3.1.2 Effect of Fiber transmission distance on %EVM

Fig.4 depicts the plot of %EVM against fiber transmission distance at transmitted CW input

powers of 0dBm and 4dBm for DP-QSK, DP-16QAM and DP-32QAM coherent optical system.

It is observed that with the increase of the distance from 80km to 960km ,there is increase in

%EVM and reaches to maximum value for the transmitted powers of 0dBm and 4dBm .For the

lesser transmitted power i.e. 0dBm ,the %EVM is more as compared to higher transmitted power

i.e. 4dBm.

3.1.3 Requirement of OSNR

The performance of BER versus OSNR for back to back and 80km transmission link in

coherent optical system using different modulation formats with target BER ~ 3.8X10-3 is shown

in Fig.5. It is clear that as OSNR increases the BER decreases. BER performance is degraded

with the use of advanced modulation formats as higher OSNR is required for DP-32QAM

coherent system to maintain BER <3.8X10-3 due to the increase of the nonlinear effects in

higher order modulation coherent systems but the increase of OSNR should be limited as high

OSNR increases the nonlinear impairments of the system which affect the signal and make it

difficult to recover the original signal. The required OSNR for back to back system having BER

< 3.8X10-3 for DP-QPSK, DP-16QAM and DP-32QAM is 12.5dB,16.5dB and 21.5dB

respectively and for transmission link of 80km the required OSNR is 12.8dB ,17.1 and 23dB

respectively .It is observed that DP-QPSK coherent systems have better BER performance as
compared to other systems. The results are summarized in the Table 1. The constellation

diagrams of DP-QPSK, DP_16QAM and DP-32QAM for back to back and 80km transmission

distance at a specified OSNR are shown in Table 2.

4. Conclusion

We have simulated single channel coherent optical system for 112 Gb/s with Dual polarization

modulation techniques i.e. DP- QPSK (Dual Polarization Quadrature phase shift keying), DP-

16QAM (Dual Polarization 16 Quadrature amplitude Modulation) and DP-32QAM (Dual

Polarization 32 Quadrature amplitude Modulation) with DSP module for SSMF (standard

single mode fiber) and analyzed the effect of fiber nonlinearities on the basis of effect of CW

input power and transmission distance on %EVM and the requirement of OSNR for BER ~

3.8X10-3. Simulation results shows that as the CW transmitted power increases or transmission

distance increases, measured %EVM for coherent system with DP-QPSK is less as compared to

other two modulation formats and smaller OSNR is required for coherent system with DP-

QPSK at BER ~ 3.8X10-3i.e DP-QPSK is more tolerant to fiber nonlinearities as compared to

other advanced modulation formats. Coherent detection with advanced modulation formats is a

promising technique for next generation high speed transmission systems due to high spectral

efficiency but they become less tolerant to fiber nonlinearities.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thanks I.K Gujral Punjab Technical University Jalandhar, for providing me

opportunity and technical support to complete this research work.

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 Dual Transmission Coherent Digital Detection
polarization Optical Signal and
Link
coherent Receiver Processing Decoding
optical Unit Unit
transmitter

Fig.1 System model of Dual Polarization coherent optical system

 Data
900 PD ADC
optical
MZM hybrid
PD ADC
D
S
Laser PBS PBC EDFA Filter PBS P

900 PD ADC
Loop optical
MZM
Control hybrid
PD ADC

Local
Oscillator
Data

Dual polarization Transmitter Channel Receiver

Fig.2 Block Diagram of Dual Polarization coherent optical system

 (a) (b)

Fig.3 Effect of transmitted power on %EVM for coherent optical system with different
modulation formats at a transmission distance of a) 80km b) 400km
 (a) (b)

Fig.4 Effect of fiber transmission distance on %EVM for coherent optical system with dual
polarization modulation formats at transmitted power a) 0dBm and b) 4dBm
Fig.5 Effect of OSNR on BER a) back to back b) 80km
Table 1 Required OSNR at BER ~3.8X10-3

Required OSNR at DP-QPSK DP-16QAM DP-32QAM

BER ~3.8X10-3
Back to Back 12.5dB 16.5dB 21.5dB

80km 12.8dB 17.1dB 23dB

Table 2 Constellation plots after DSP for 112 Gbit/s DP –QPSK, DP-16QAM and DP-32QAM
coherent systems

Modulation format Back to Back 80km

DP-QPSK

DP-16QAM

DP-32QAM