Remotely Powered and Reconfigured Quasi-Passive Reconfigurable Nodes for Optical Access Networks

Abstract

Quasi-Passive Reconfigurable (QPAR) nodes have been proposed to provide flexible power/wavelength allocation in optical access networks. QPAR only consumes power during reconfiguration, which is remotely transmitted from the central office, thus maintaining the passive nature of the network. In this paper, a QPAR control circuit is designed, and a remotely powered and reconfigured1×2×2QPAR (i.e., one wavelength, two power levels, and two output ports) with a 0.1 F/5 V supercapacitor (SC) remotely charged by a1×8photodiode array is experimentally demonstrated. The charged SC can power the QPAR for at least 6 s with 24 consecutive reconfigurations (200 ms each) or two reconfigurations within a maximum period of 40 hours, before the SC needs to be recharged. In addition, the demonstrated QPAR remote power scheme is compared with the previously proposed Direct Photovoltaic Power option both theoretically and experimentally. Results show that the SC based remote power mechanism is capable of driving a large number of reconfigurations simultaneously and it is better for large dimension QPARs.

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

“…It directly depends on: the electricalto-optical conversion efficiency at the transmitter site, N1, the transmission efficiency of the optical distribution network, N 2, and the optical-to-electrical conversion efficiency of the photovoltaic converter, N3, at the remote node. Previous studies [7], [26] define the product of N2 and N 3 as the System Energy Efficiency (SEE). In this work, we expand this figure of merit by adding the N 1 term, which includes the coupling efficiency between the HPL and the optical fiber.…”

Remote Optical Powering Using Fiber Optics in Hazardous Environments

“…The converter stage transforms the received optical power into electrical power, PV elec P , for driving a load. The system energy efficiency, SEE, of the power over fiber system can be expressed as [18]:…”

Quasi-Passive Optical Infrastructure for Future 5G Wireless Networks: Pros and Cons

“…Assuming the drain voltage is 5 V, the current that needs to be deliv ered to the power amplifier would be ∼21 mA. Applying the direct photovoltaic power scheme described in Section II, the power to each PD in an eight in series InGaAs PD array (used in the experiments in [16]) would have to be around 16 dBm; thus, the total optical power that would be needed to be delivered to the PD array would be ∼25 dBm, which is very challenging. For a macro cell covering a cell of a few kilometers in radius, the output power alone can be in the range of >20 W, which results in a power amplifier drain current of 13.4 A, which is not feasible using the remote powering techniques.…”

“…In essence, a QPAR node has two main features: (1) splitting the input power into adjustable levels so as to share power only among a select number of ports, and (2) dynamic wavelength routing based on the bandwidth requirement. Additionally, the QPAR device does not consume power in the steady state and can be remotely powered for reconfiguration, thus avoiding on site maintenance [16]. Although originally, the device was designed for next generation PONs, in this paper, we explore scenarios where QPAR is used to gener ate arbitrary point to point or point to multipoint topol ogies among BSs.…”

“…To completely eliminate local power supplies, two meth ods of remotely powering the QPAR node were developed and experimentally demonstrated [16]: direct photovoltaic power and charged supercapacitor power. A comparison be tween the two techniques shows that the direct photovol taic power option has better system energy efficiency and requires less time for reconfiguration.…”