Experiments on Shared- and Dedicated- Power over Fiber Scenarios in Multi-core Fibers

Abstract

We explore the potential of optical power delivery in multicores fibers, either using individual cores only for power or to share both data and power signals into the same core. A comparison between both scenarios in terms of power levels for different link lengths and number of elements required is provided. We measure the impact of high power-over-fiber signals at 1480nm on the data transmission quality in a 4-core multicore fiber. Both dedicated-and shared-core scenarios are evaluated showing both negligible data traffic quality performance changes.

Optically Powered Radio-Over-Fiber Systems in Support of 5G Cellular Networks and IoT

“…ower-over-fiber (PoF) is now seen as a realistic option to feed some reconfigurable elements in optical access networks with single mode fibers (SMF) [1], and to optically powering remote antenna units (RAUs) through specialty fibers such as doublecladding fibers for high power levels [2] or multicore fibers for high data rates demands in future mobile front-haul with analog RoF (ARoF) [3,4] and space division multiplexing (SDM). The reduction of the cell size of RAUs boosted to support the bandwidth demands of RF signals targeted by the upcoming 5G technology will mean a dramatic increment in the number of RAUs installed.…”

The Role of Power-over-Fiber in C-RAN Fronthauling Towards 5G

“…2.6 Gbps bit-rate data traffic signals from a SFP transceiver operating at 1550 nm are employed. The setup is described in detail in [16]. For both shared-and dedicated-scenarios negligible BER penalty is measured between switching the HPL OFF and ON for any MCF core combination.…”

Multicore Fiber Scenarios Supporting Power Over Fiber in Radio Over Fiber Systems

“…MCF was also proposed in the PoF pooling concept in 5G frounthaul architectures with SDN [12] and more recently in SDN/NFV front-haul networks deploying simultaneously Analog RoF (ARoF) and PoF [21]. Experiments in a 20 m-long 4-MCF link with simultaneous data (2.6 Gbps) and energy delivery (320 mW/core) show no BER penalty [13].…”

“…In this framework, a PoF system for delivering power to a generic RRH at the remote site, with both power and control channels, is shown in Fig.1.a. In the power over MCF transmission, there are two main scenarios [13]:…”

“…The PoF pooling concept in 5G front-haul architectures with Software Defined Network (SDN) capabilities also uses MCF [12]. Some results in 4-core MCF with simultaneous data and energy delivery with no BER penalty are reported in [13]. Apart from this, most works use each core either for energy or for data delivery with a lack of a systematic analysis of how to optimize the efficiency of a PoF solution along with an estimation of the power limits.…”