Analogue radio over fiber aided optical-domain MIMO signal processing for high-performance low-cost radio access networks

Wireless communication is facing an ever-increasing thirst for high-quality data transmission. However, this imposes high demands on the radio access networks (RAN), where optical fiber has been widely used both for the backhaul and fronthaul. However, the explosive escalation of wireless teletraffic tests the limits of the RAN’s revenue vs cost trade-off, which motivates low-cost designs. Hence, we present a costefficient yet high-performance radio over fiber (RoF) aided RAN concept. We commence by introducing this motivation, followed by a brief introduction to analogue RoF (A-RoF) and digitised RoF (D-RoF), as well as to wireless multiple-input-multiple-input (MIMO) techniques. Then, we present the centralised RAN (CRAN) concept relying on A-RoF aided MIMO signal processing, where the MIMO signal is carried by fiber and it is processed optically in a central unit. Subsequently, we focus our attention on a C-RAN small-cell application followed by our performance vs cost analysis of the A-RoF system compared to that of its baseband counterparts, demonstrating that the A-RoF design is capable of reducing the RAN’s total cost, whilst meeting the third generation partnership project’s (3GPP) requirements