DEPARTMENT OF TECHNOLOGY

CODED OFDM IN HYBRID

RADIO OVER FIBER LINKS
Juan Miranda
September, 2007

Masters Thesis in Electronics/Telecommunications

Examiner: Magnus Isaksson
Supervisor: Mikael Gidlund

We shall not cease from exploration,

and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where
we started, and know the place for the first time.

T. S. ELLIOT

Acknowledgements
First, I would like to thank Prof. Edvard Nordlander, Lic. Jose Chilo and Ing. Mauricio
Postigo for pioneering the interchange program that brought me to Sweden. I also
appreciate the most dedicated work of Olof Bengsson to achieve its continuation. I wish
to thank Prof. Claes Beckman for his encouragement to follow this thesis project, the
sponsorship of The Fiber Optic Valley for its realization; as well as the trust, motivation
and wise guidance of my advisor Mikael Gidlund. I am also grateful for the kindness of
Per Anskog to provide me with informatic resources to carry out my simulations and the
good disposition of Prof. Xavier Fernando and Kun Wan to share their knowledge on the
subject.

I must also thank my friends, the beloved ones with whom I could not share my
days here, and those who have joined me along the way teaching me so many things
without even knowing (my Peruvian friends and latin family). In particular Efrain, Vesna
and Carolina who lived with me intensely these last months giving me help, a spare smile
for the bad times and plenty of joy along the way. Frin, thank you for sharing the every
day life, for your advice, honesty and company in all I have done. I know you will make
it very far my brother. Dear Miss V, it is almost misterious how one may travel half of the
world without knowing why, simply to create such an indestructible bond as friendship
with someone you feel you always knew so well. Carito, I am so delighted to have you as
a partner and girlfriend in this great adventure, though filled with obstacles we had to
overcome step by step, rewarded with mutual/self discovery and admiration. Athank
you is very small considering everything we have lived.

Finally, I would like to hug my family for bringing me life and confidence and for
simply being there, unconditionally, believing. I dedicate this Master thesis to them.

Abstract
Radio over Fiber (RoF) is perhaps the most promising answer to users continuous
demand for bandwidth in radio-multimedia applications. Coded Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiplexing (COFDM) on the other hand, has gained popularity in todays
wireless world due to its flexibility and robustness in fading environments. As the fusion
of both is imminent, it becomes of interest to examine OFDM reliability in the nonlinearities and multipath posed by the RoF link.

After developing a mathematical framework, the present investigation quantifies

OFDM performance by simulating the Bit Error Rate of the uncoded and coded OFDMRoF system for Uplink (UL) and Downlink (DL). Several BCH and Reed-Solomon codes
were studied with different code rates, complexity and interleaving depth. Their
properties are related to system parameters such as Bit Energy per Noise Density, Input
Back-Off and modulation order.

The system modeling considers multipath fading from radio transmission and
Amplitude-to-Amplitude and Amplitude-to-Phase distortions produced by the Electricalto-Optical conversion and amplifying stages. Some basic specifications for the OFDM
system such as modulation and number of subcarriers were taken from the IEEE802.11a
standard.

Results show that using 4-QAM modulation with a moderate Input Back-Off, BCH
and small Reed-Solomon codes can yield a significant improvement of performance for
UL and DL. However, using 16-QAM modulation coding will not have the same
effectiveness reducing Bit Error Rate even when Reed-Solomon is used with large
number of bits per symbol. A number of interesting solutions relating coding and signal
processing are outlined at the end of this study.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 1
1.1

BACKGROUND............................................................................................................ 1

1.2

PREVIOUS RESEARCH ................................................................................................ 3

1.3

PROBLEM STATEMENT............................................................................................... 3

1.3.1

GENERAL OBJECTIVE.............................................................................................. 3

1.3.2

GOAL ...................................................................................................................... 4

1.3.3

PROJECT SPECIFICATIONS ....................................................................................... 4

1.4

THESIS OUTLINE. ....................................................................................................... 4

Chapter 2 Radio over Fiber ............................................................................................. 6

2.1

GENERAL DESCRIPTION ............................................................................................. 7

2.2

STAGES OF THE ROF SYSTEM .................................................................................... 7

2.2.1

ELECTRIC TO OPTICAL CONVERSION ..................................................................... 7

2.2.2

THE FIBER OPTIC LINK ........................................................................................... 8

2.2.3

OPTICAL TO ELECTRIC CONVERSION ..................................................................... 9

2.3

ROF LINK SPECIFICATIONS........................................................................................ 9

2.4

OPTICAL LINK NONLINEARITY MODELING ............................................................. 10

2.5

WIRELESS CHANNEL MODEL .................................................................................. 13

2.6

SIMULATION METHODOLOGY.................................................................................. 15

2.7

ASSUMPTIONS .......................................................................................................... 16

Chapter 3 Uncoded OFDM in RoF Links.................................................................... 17

3.1
3.1.1
3.2

OFDM FUNDAMENTALS .......................................................................................... 17

DEFINITION OF OFDM.......................................................................................... 17
OFDM IN MULTIPATH FADING ............................................................................... 19

3.2.1

CHANNEL ESTIMATION AND EQUALIZATION IN OFDM....................................... 20

3.2.2

GENERAL OFDM SYSTEM .................................................................................... 22

3.3

AM/AM DISTORTION ON OFDM SIGNALS .............................................................. 23

3.4

AM/AM-AM/PM DISTORTION ON OFDM SIGNALS ................................................ 27

Chapter 4 Coded OFDM in RoF links .......................................................................... 30

4.1
4.1.1

DEFINITIONS IN CODING THEORY ........................................................................... 30

DEFINITION OF GALOIS FIELDS ............................................................................ 30

4.1.2

BLOCK ERROR CHANNEL CODING..........................................................................31

4.1.3

LINEAR, CYCLIC AND SYSTEMATIC CODES ............................................................31

4.1.4

MINIMUM HAMMING DISTANCE ............................................................................32

4.1.5

DECODING FAILURE ..............................................................................................32

4.2
4.2.1
4.3

BCH CODES .............................................................................................................32

PROBABILITY OF BIT ERROR IN MEMORYLESS BINARY SYMMETRIC CHANNELS 33
REED-SOLOMON CODES ...........................................................................................33

4.3.1

SHORTENED REED-SOLOMON CODES ....................................................................34

4.3.2

PROBABILITY OF BIT ERROR .................................................................................34

4.4

DECODING AND COMPARISON OF BCH AND REED-SOLOMON CODES ....................35

4.5

SELECTION OF CODE SPECIFICATIONS .....................................................................36

Chapter 5 Bit Error Rate Simulations...........................................................................39

5.1

UNCODED OFDM.....................................................................................................39

5.2

CODED OFDM..........................................................................................................43

5.3

DISCUSSION ..............................................................................................................46

Chapter 6 Conclusions and Future Work .....................................................................48

6.1

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................48

6.2

FUTURE WORK .........................................................................................................49

References ........................................................................................................................51

List of Tables
TABLE 3.1. SIMULATION PARAMETERS FOR THE OFDM SYSTEM .................................... 23
TABLE 4.1. COMPARISSON OF BCHAND RS CODES.......................................................... 36
TABLE 4.2. PROPOSED BCH CODE PARAMETERS FOR THE CODED OFDM RADIO OVER
FIBER SYSTEM. .......................................................................................................... 37
TABLE 4.3. PROPOSED REED-SOLOMON CODE PARAMTERS FOR THE CODED OFDM
RADIO OVER FIBER SYSTEM...................................................................................... 37
TABLE 5.1. CODES USED IN THE OFDM-ROF LINK WITH 4 AND 16QAM MODULATION. N:
LENGTH OF CODEWORD, K: LENGTH OF MESSAGE, T: NUMBER OF CORRECTABLE
ERRORS...................................................................................................................... 43

List of Figures
FIGURE 1.1. RADIO OVER FIBER SOLUTION FOR WIDEBAND MULTIMEDIA ACCESS[1] .....2
FIGURE 2.1. FUNCTIONAL DIAGRAM OF A ROF SYSTEM......................................................6
FIGURE 2.2. AMPLITUDE AND PHASE RESPONSE OF A TYPICAL ROF LINK[19]..................10
FIGURE 2.3. MODELLING OF NON-LINEAR SYSTEM WITH AM/AM AND AM/PM NONLINEARITIES. ..............................................................................................................12

FIGURE 2.4. MULTIPATH FADING AS THE RESULT OF MULTIPLE REFLECTIONS[30]. .........13

FIGURE 3.1. OFDM ORTHOGONAL SUBCARRIERS IN FREQUENCY FOR S=8. ....................18
FIGURE 3.2. OFDM DEMODULATOR FOR A MULTIPATH FADING CHANNEL. .....................19
FIGURE 3.3. GENERAL BLOCK DIAGRAM FOR OFDM SYSTEM. .........................................22
FIGURE 3.4. NON-LINEAR SYSTEM.....................................................................................23
FIGURE 3.5. AM/AM DISTORTION IN 4-QAM OFDM FOR INPUT AVERAGE POWER
VARYING FROM IBO=10DB UP TO TWICE SATURATION (IBO = -3DB). ....................26

FIGURE 3.6. COMPARISSON OF AM/AM DISTORTION EFFECT IN 16-QAM OFDM AND

SINGLE CARRIER SIGNALS FOR AN AVERAGE INPUT POWER OF 1.1MW.....................26

FIGURE 3.7. COMPARISSON OF AM/PM EFFECT ON OFDM AND SINGLE CARRIER SIGNALS
FOR 0.1MW AVERAGE INPUT POWER. ........................................................................28

FIGURE 3.8. AM/PM DISTORTION IN 4-QAM OFDM FOR AVERAGE INPUT POWER
VARYING FROM IBO = 10DB UP TO TWICE SATURATION (IBO = -3DB). ..................28

FIGURE 3.9. COMBINED AMAM AND AM/PM DISTORTIONS IN 4-QAM OFDM FOR
AVERAGE INPUT POWER VARYING FRORM IBO = 10DB UP TO SATURATION

(1.15MW)...................................................................................................................29
FIGURE 5.1. 4-QAM OFDM BIT ERROR RATE FOR AM/AM IN AWGN. .........................39
FIGURE 5.2. 16-QAM OFDM BIT ERROR RATE FOR AM/AM IN AWGN. .......................40
FIGURE 5.3. 4-QAM OFDM BIT ERROR RATE FOR AM/PM IN AWGN. ..........................40
FIGURE 5.4. 16-QAM OFDM BIT ERROR RATE FOR AM/PM IN AWGN. ........................41
FIGURE 5.5. 4 AND 16-QAM OFDM BIT ERROR RATE FOR AM/AM-AM/PM IN AWGN.
...................................................................................................................................41
FIGURE 5.6. 4 AND 16-QAM OFDM BIT ERROR RATE FOR THE ROF UPLINK. ................42
FIGURE 5.7. 4 AND 16-QAM OFDM BIT ERROR RATE FOR THE ROF DOWNLINK. ..........42
FIGURE 5.8. COMPARISSON OF BCH AND RS IN THE UPLINK USING 4-QAM MODULATION
AND IBO = 10DB. ......................................................................................................43

FIGURE 5.9. COMPARISSON OF BCH AND RS IN DOWNLINK USING 16-QAM MODULATION

WITH IBO = 10 DB .................................................................................................... 44

FIGURE 5.10. COMPARISSON OF BCH CODES IN THE UPLINK USING 4-QAM MODULATION
AND IBO = 4DB......................................................................................................... 45

FIGURE 5.11. COMPARISSON OF LARGE RS CODE WITH BCH IN THE DOWNLINK USING
4QAM MODULATION AND IBO=4DB. ...................................................................... 45
FIGURE 5.12. UPLINK COMPARISSON OF 16 AND 4 QAM MODULATIONS WITH
BCH(127,64) USING 10DB AND 4 DB IBO RESPECTIVELY. ...................................... 46

List of Abbreviations
RoF

Radio over Fiber

CS

Control Station

BS

Base Station

OFDM

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing

COFDM

Coded OFDM

QAM

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

FFT

Fast Fourier Transform

ICI

Inter-Carrier Interference

ISI

Inter-Symbol Interference

UL

Uplink

DL

Donwlink

AWGN

Additive White Gaussian Noise

NLD

Non-linear Distortion

AM/AM

Amplitude-to-Amplitude Distortion

AM/PM

Amplitude-to-Phase Distortion

IR

Impulse Response

LS

Least Squares

IBO

Input Back-Off

BCH

Bose, Chaudhuri and Hocquenhem codes

RS

Reed-Solomon codes

BER

Bit Error Rate

SNR

Signal to Noise Ratio

Chapter 1

Introduction
1.1

Background

Currently there is an increasing demand for bandwidth and capacity in multimedia

applications in wireless systems. This implies operation in microwave and millimeter
frequencies to avoid spectral congestion, but even more important, a reduction of cell
size. Since the number of base stations would be greatly increased and each carries out a
number of routing and processing functions, costs would raise dramatically. A good
alternative is to concentrate functionalities in a Central Control Station (CS) that connects
several Base Stations (BS). Radio-over-Fiber (RoF) solves this problem inexpensively
while supporting high-speed multimedia [1]. Figure 1.1 illustrates the concept.

Fiber Optics (FO) is a better alternative than Copper Cable because it is a mature,
flexible, and emerging technology capable of providing Terabit-per-second rates with
much lower attenuation [2]. Information security is also enhanced since it can not be
tapped without generating reflections and power losses; and it eliminates risks of shock,
sharp and fire hazards [3].

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is widely used in modern

wireless systems such as Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), Digital Video BroadcastingTerrestrial programs (DVB-T), fixed wire systems like Asynchronous Digital Subscriber
Line (ADSL); and wireless Local Area Network (LAN) Standards like IEEE802.11a, WiMax and HyperLAN II [4]. The basic concept behind OFDM is to divide the channels
bandwidth into sub-channels by multiplying each baseband modulated symbol by a
different sub-carrier. These are spaced orthogonally in frequency, producing sub-channel
overlapping thus reducing bandwidth requirements. This also makes OFDM easy to
implement by using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithms. OFDM is a good
alternative because it provides spectral efficiency and good performance over multipath
1

fading channels. Though sub-carrier orthogonality is the essence of OFDM, it is very

sensitive to certain system factors: large timing and sampling frequency offsets, carrier
synchronization error, large phase rotation and clipping [5].

Original Cell

Radio
Access Point
Control
Station

Fiber
Optic Link

Micro cell

Figure 1.1. Radio over Fiber solution for Wideband Multimedia Access
(modified from [1]).

Because of the high capacity and low cost of RoF systems and OFDMs
significance in todays wireless world, it is necessary to merge OFDM and RoF to
provide a complete wireless solution. However, there are various issues in the design of a
RoF link: loss due to electrical-optical-electrical conversion, increasing intensity noise;
and most important for this study, Amplitude to Amplitude (AM/AM) and Amplitude to
Phase (AM/PM) nonlinearities from the optical modulator and RF amplifier [1]. The
consequence is a significant limitation of OFDM effectiveness due to Inter-Carrier
Interference (ICI) [6] [7]. Using certain parameters from the IEEE802.11a Standard [8]
for the OFDM-RoF system, the aim of this work is to use channel coding as a way of
combating OFDM shortcomings when applied to a Radio over Fiber link.

1.2

Previous Research

All efforts done to compensate for the RoF link must take into account that no Signal
Processing may be done at the RAP, since it would increase the systems cost.
Compensation techniques must be easy to implement, and may be carried out at the
mobile terminals and CS only [1]. From the literature it is known that the Uplink (UL) is
more critical since fading will distort the transmitted signal before it reaches the
nonlinearity, hence it requires a different solution from the Downlink (DL) [7].

Previous solutions for single carrier systems include using a baseband predistortion
scheme for the DL, and a postcompensation scheme based on higher order adaptative
filters for the UL considering the wireless channel as Additive White Gaussian Noise
(AWGN) only. Also a Hammerstein system was used to compensate for the multipath
fading and FO nonlinearities in the UL [9].

Xu [7] studied the performance of QPSK-OFDM in Radio over Fiber focusing also
on AM/AM and AM/PM Non-Linear Distortion (NLD) and multipath, but leaves as
future work the implementation of channel coding to the system. Though some have
studied the feasibility of implementing entire OFDM standards such as Wi-Max [10] and
IEEE802.11a [11] in Radio over Fiber, little study has been conducted on the
performance of coding alone combined with the OFDM-RoF link. Because of their well
established properties, flexibility in error correction capacity and decoding complexity,
BCH and Reed-Solomon codes are an appealing first aproach.

1.3
1.3.1

Problem Statement
General Objective

The outermost objective of this thesis is to compare the UL and DL performance of

different BCH and Reed-Solomon codes for OFDM transmission on Radio over Fiber.
Such a comparison shall be based on theoretical background and simulations in
MATLAB, using the IEEE802.11a standard as a reference for OFDM systems
parameters. A fair trade-off must be established relating code size and interleaving depth,
as well as correction capabilities and decoding complexity.
3

Note that it is not within the scope of this work to make a fully IEEE 802.11a
compliant simulation or to study any other phenomena arising from the fiber optical
cable. Focus is set on the combined nonlinearities produced by the laser diode for
Electrical to Optical conversion and the Radiofrequency Power Amplifier; as well as in
the multipath fading from the wireless channel.

1.3.2

Goal

To evaluate the benefit from using well known coding schemes minimizing the coding
complexity while lowering significantly Bit Error Rates (BER).

1.3.3

Project specifications

Optic link: single mode transmission using direct intensity modulation.

Operating frequency and bandwidth: The IEEE802.11a standard operates at a
frequency of 5GHz with 20MHz bandwidth channels.
Modulation: 4-QAM and 16-QAM
Coding: BCH and Reed-Solomon codes.

1.4

Thesis Outline.

The structure of the thesis is as follows:

Chapter 1 Introduction - presents a background of OFDM and RoF links

explaining the major challenges, related research, as well as the projects objectives,
goals and specifications.
Chapter 2 Radio over Fiber Link - deals with the structure of the Radio over
Fiber system in detail. It reviews each stage and presents its contribution to the
mathematical formulation of the system.
Chapter 3 Uncoded OFDM in a RoF System - explains the blocks that form an
OFDM modulation system and describes the multipath fading, channel estimation and
RoF nonlinearities influence on OFDM modulation using relevant theory and
constellation simulations.
Chapter 4 Coded OFDM in a RoF System - begins with definitions for
Channel Coding theory, next explaining the coding schemes, their error correction
capacity and the criteria behind their selection.
4

 Chapter 5 Bit Error Rate Simulations presents several BER results for the
uncoded and coded cases. It rounds up discussing the effect of AM/AM-AM/PM
nonlinearities in the BER, and the improvements achieved with the use of coding.
Chapter 6 Conclusions summarizes the process followed throughout the
other chapters emphasizing on the interpretation of the obtained results. It also
presents a number of appealing ideas for the continuation of this work.

Chapter 2

Radio over Fiber

This chapter is devoted to describing each of the stages in a Radio over Fiber system,
their behavior and effect on the overall communication system. Note that OFDM alone
and its integration to the Radio over Fiber system will be studied in Chapters 3 and 4.
Chapter begins with Section 2.1 presenting a block diagram and general description of the
system, while Section 2.2 reviews the different stages more in detail. Section 2.3 explains
the component selection for the RoF link under study, while Sections 2.4 and 2.5 are
dedicated to the modeling of the nonlinearities arising from the components of the RoF
system and the multipath fading from the wireless channel.

Uplink
Vector
Demod.

RF
Demod.

O/E

Rx Data
Tx Data

Vector
Mod.

E/O

Downlink
RF
Mod.

Mobile
Unit
E/O

Control Station

Figure 2.1. Functional diagram of a RoF system.

O/E

RAP

2.1

General Description
Figure 2.1 shows the blocks comprising the RoF link. For the DL, binary data is

transmitted from the CS, base-band modulated and RF up-converted. Then it passes
through an Electrical to Optical (E/O) converter and travels through the Fiber Optic cable
to the Remote Access Point Unit. In the RAU the Optical to Electrical (O/E) converter
transforms the optic signal back into an electric signal and transmits it to a Mobile Unit.
The UL is the inverse process, since data is captured by the Radio Access Point,
converted to an optical signal that is to be O/E converted, RF-demodulated, and baseband demodulated by the CS.

2.2

Stages of the RoF System

This section is intended to describe more in depth components related with the ElectricalOptical interface: Optical to Electrical converter, Electrical to Optical Converter and the
Fiber Optic cable. Through out this description analog transmission is assumed, so the
OFDM signal will travel in analog form through the optic cable. Though this form of
transmission is limited to short distances, this is not a problem when micro or pico-cells
are used [7].

2.2.1

Electric to Optical Conversion

There are two main devices capable of performing E/O conversion: Light Emitting
Diodes (LEDs) and Laser Diodes. LED devices have the advantage of being low cost and
easy to couple to the fiber optic cable. They are usually employed in multimode fiber
optic links, since they transmit in a wider spectrum. Laser Diodes on the other hand are
suitable for single-mode transmissions because of their narrow beam-width which enables
them to reach longer distances while transmitting at good data rates (around 10GHz) [12].

There are several kinds of lasers available. In this work the Distributed Feedback
(DFB) laser is studied, because it is widely used in maximum transmission rate
applications and has high SNR and very narrow spectral width [12]. Its complex
dynamics are dictated by the Laser Rate Equations that describe the interaction between
photon density p (t ) , and carrier density n(t) [13] :
7

dp (t )
p (t ) n(t )
= G (t ) [ n(t ) n0 ] p (t )
+
dt
p
n

(2.1)

dn(t ) I p (t )
n(t )
=
G (t ) [ n(t ) n0 ] p (t )
dt
qV
n

(2.2)

G(t) is the saturable gain and is dependent on the gain compression factor and
the photon density as given in eq. (2.3) .

G (t ) =

vg a0
1 + p (t )

(2.3)

is the mode confinement factor, n0 is the carrier density at transparency, p is the

photon lifetime, is the spontaneous emission coupled into the lasing mode, n is the
carrier recombination time, q the electron charge, V is the active layer volume, vg is the
group velocity, a0 is the gain coefficient, is the linewidth enhancement factor. These
equations dictate non-linear memory and memory-less effects but are computationally
complex to solve. As an alternative, behavioral models based on AM/AM-AM/PM
distortions [14] and Volterra series have been developed to describe the lasers effects in
a computationally simpler yet accurate manner [15, 16].

2.2.2

The Fiber Optic link

Only a discrete set of wavelengths can propagate through the fiber optic cable and this
greatly depends on the cladding and core dimensions and refractive indices. If only one
wavelength can propagate the fiber is called single-mode, else it is said to be a multimode fiber.

It is easy to couple light in to a multi-mode fiber due to its wide core using as an
inexpensive source such as LEDs. However, since different modes propagate at different
speed, intermodal dispersion occurs producing Inter-Symbol-Interference (ISI) [2].
Single-mode fiber does not present such a problem and can allow transmission over
greater distances with higher operating bandwidth but requires more expensive light
sources [12, 17]..
8

Fiber cables also can suffer from attenuation, absorption, scattering, intramodal
dispersion and non-linear phenomena such as Four Wave Mixing, Self and Cross Phase
Modulation. However, long interaction distances are usually needed to achieve nonlinear
mixing of any significance, while dispersion can be reduced by using 1310nm zerodispersion fiber [7, 17]. Short length 1310nm fiber is assumed, hence, the fiber cable is
considered as a linear medium with zero attenuation.

2.2.3

Optical to Electric Conversion

This process is usually carried out by photo diodes, which behave linearly unless the laser
diode power is 5-10mW or higher. For frequencies smaller than 10 GHz, the photodiode
shot noise may be regarded as constant and additive [7]. Due to the short length of the
fiber all the optical channel impairments would contribute to phase and amplitude
distortions plus noise only. The noise consists of relative intensity, shot, thermal and
clipping noise [18].

2.3

RoF Link Specifications

Since performing measurements for a real Radio-over-Fiber system is out of the scope of
this project, specifications and measurements were taken from Fernando [18, 19].
Measurements present curves for AM/AM and AM/PM distortions as a function of
instantaneous RF input power. The selected model was found to be the most
representative compared to [14] that presents a similar model but with much weaker
AM/PM distortion, and [10] that considers clipping as the only distortion imposed by the
laser.

The optical transmitter consists of a directly modulated InGaAsP DFB laser

transmitter. The receiver uses a PIN diode photo detector connected with the transmitter
by a 2.2km long 9/125 single mode fiber. The receiver has a trans-impedance amplifier
and post-amplifier with a total gain of 32dB to compensate for O/E conversion loss,
making the total link gain approximately unity. The flat-passband (i.e. operating range) is
between 1.7-2.2GHz. Measurements were taken at the output of the detector after the
amplifying stage or at the input of the laser. Measured responses are shown in Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2. Amplitude and phase response of a typical RoF link [18].

The curves were obtained by generating a random data sequence, modulating it in

QPSK and transmitting it through the optical system. At the remote end it is received,
down-converted and the constellation is read by the Vector Modulation Analyzer. Input
RF power starts at -24dBm (3.9uW) and is increased up to +5dBm (3.1mW), and then it
is decreased down to -24dBm. The original measurements presented in [19] showed a
hysteresis in the phase yielding an error of 5 degrees, which suggests long-term memory
effects.

2.4

Optical Link Nonlinearity Modeling

For convenience in this section the terms signal or power refer to RF signal and
power respectively unless otherwise stated. Figure 2.2 showed two curves. One relating
the output power to the input power and the other one the output-input phase shift
depending on the inputs signal power. Both curves correspond to AM/AM and AM/PM
distortion respectively and depend only on the instantaneous input power.
Mathematically, given an input signal with amplitude A(t), phase (t ) and carrier
frequency f c :

s (t ) = A(t ) cos(2 f c t + (t ))

10

(2.4)

The signal and its Low-Pass Equivalent (LPE) are related as follows [20]:

s (t ) = A(t ) exp j (t )

(2.5)

s (t ) = Re{s (t )e j 2 fct }

(2.6)

The instantaneous power of RF signal s(t) can be written as:

P (t ) A(t ) 2 s (t )
Ps (t ) = s =
=
2
2
2

(2.7)

where Ps (t ) is the power of the low-pass equivalent; and A(t ) and s (t ) both represent
the envelope of s (t ) . Then, the complex-envelope output signal of a non-linear system
undergoing AM/AM and AM/PM distortions can be represented as:

y (t ) = g { A(t )} exp j ( (t ) + f { A(t )} )

(2.8)

Such a model characterizes the non-linear systems response near the center
frequency only, which is the region of interest. This kind of model can not be categorized
as strictly memoryless due to the presence of AM/PM distortion, but rather as
instantaneous or effectively memoryless. It is based on the assumption that the bandwidth
of the input to the non-linear system is much smaller than the bandwidth of the system
itself [21], and hence, is frequency independent. Thus, the measurements presented in
Section 2.3 that were originally for 2GHz center frequency can be assumed to be
representative at the 5GHz spectrum.

The fact that these measurements were performed using a single carrier might
question their applicability to a large amplitude varying signal such as OFDM. However,
though elaborated models exist to represent separately the memory effects of the power
amplifier and laser diode using techniques such as Volterra series [1] [16, 22], a variety of
authors use memoryless AM/AM [11, 23] or AM/AM-AM/PM [24, 25] systems to
describe OFDMs behaviour when subjected to a non-linearity.

11

Fernando [18] uses third order polynomials to model the AM/AM and AM/PM
distortions in Figure 2.2 in the range of 0-2mW. However, these polynomials relate the
output power and output phase shift to the input power instead of the magnitude. That is
equivalent to rewrite eq. (2.8) as:

y (t ) = { Ps (t ) } exp j (t ) + { Ps (t ) }

(2.9)

where:

{ Ps ( t ) } = 1.3762 Ps (t ) 0.83406 Ps2( t ) + 0.16306 Ps3( t )

{ Ps (t ) } = 2.548 1.696 Ps + 0.796 Ps2 0.124 Ps3

, 0 Ps ( t ) Pin ,th (2.10)

For input power greater than 2mW the threshold input power as Pin ,th , the
polynomials will no longer converge to the measurements. To compensate for this, the
power of the output signal will be clipped whenever as Pin ,th is exceeded. From Figure 2.2
the threshold input power can be estimated to be 1.25mW, any input power that exceeds
this limit will be clipped to a constant output power of 0.73mW. Figure 2.3 illustrates the
generation of the output of the non-linear system.

Figure 2.3. Modelling of non-linear system with AM/AM and AM/PM nonlinearities.

12

2.5

Wireless Channel Model

The three main impairments affecting the electro-magnetic signal traveling through

a wireless medium are path-loss, shadowing, and multipath fading. While path loss
describes the power attenuation of the signal with distance, shadowing accounts for the
presence of objects in the path of the signal. Both correspond to large-scale channel
models described by complex information systems. Only multipath fading will be
considered since shadowing and path loss are negligible within a small area (five to forty
times the wavelength) [26]. The concept of fading is illustrated in Figure 2.4.

Figure 2.4. Multipath fading as the result of multiple reflections [27].

Because transmitter, receiver and surrounding objects may be in movement, the

transmitted signal will travel through different physical paths. Each has its own length
(delay) and amplitude, and possibly varies in time. This will have two major
consequences on received signal: frequency selective fading and ISI.

A multipath channel can be modeled as a linear system and is thus completely

specified by its impulse response (IR). For a discrete-time-invariant channel with delays
matching the sampling instants the IR is given by [21]:
13

h[n] =

k max

k max

h [n k ] = e [n k ]
j

k =1

k =1

(2.11)

where k and k are the amplitude and phase of the kth multipath component hk, and

kmax is the number of paths. The Power Delay Profile (PDP) is a measure of the power
in each multipath component as expressed by eq. (2.12).

PDP[n] =

k max

k =1

[n k ]

(2.12)

The Average Delay and Root Means Square Delay Spread are related by:

AVG

2
i i

2
i

2
i i

P0

RMS = AVG 2
2 =

(2.13)

2 2
i i

P0

While the PDP is a measure of the power distribution among the paths, RMS is
inversely proportional to the minimum bandwidth for which the channel is flat. If the
channel varies slowly in time so that its IR may be assumed constant for a fixed number
of symbols, the channel is called quasi-static. Quasi-static channels are beneficial due to
the great savings in computational time.

An example of such a model was developed by Naftali Chayat [28]. It assumes that
the Power Delay Profile is described by an exponentially decaying Rayleigh fading
channel model, and that the sampling time in simulation is shorter than the symbol time
by at least a factor of four. Also, the number of samples taken must assure enough decay
of the impulse response: kmax = 10 RMS / Ts.

The impulse response of the channel is given by the equations:

14

1
1
hk = N (0, k2 ) + jN (0, k2 )
2
2
2
2
k = 0 exp kTs / RMS

(2.14)

02 = 1 exp Ts / RMS
where k2 and hk correspond to the variance and magnitude/phase of the kth multipath
component, and 02 is a normalization constant to ensure that E k2 =1, thus making
the power of the received signal equal to the power of the transmitted signal . E [ i ] stands
for expected value.

Though several other multipath channel models are available in the literature [2932], the Naftali model was selected due to its common use in IEEE802.11a and
IEEE802.11b standards, computational simplicity, and relatively good accuracy.

The Bit Error Rate of the OFDM system was simulated considering AWGN and
multipath only. The number of paths kmax was varied between 3, 5, 8 and 12. The
performance of the system did not change so much between kmax = 5 and kmax = 8 so the
number of paths for simulations of the complete RoF system was chosen to be five.

2.6

Simulation Methodology

To obtain results of statistical significance the Monte Carlo method was used for Bit Error
Rate simulations. For a given Signal-to-Noise-Ratio (SNR), the method performs several
iterations transmitting and receiving bits through the whole system being simulated until a
certain number of bit errors is counted or the maximum number of iterations is reached.
Instead of simulating BER as a function of SNR, its digital equivalent, the ratio of energy
per bit to noise power spectral density (Eb/No) is used. For a discrete signal its relation to
SNR in decibels is given by [21]:

SNR [ dB ] = Eb / No [ dB ] + 10 log10 (log 2 M ) 10 log10 N samp

(2.15)

15

where M is the number of symbols in the modulation alphabet and N samp is the
oversampling factor. From now on Eb/No may be referred to as digital SNR.

Since BER simulations provide an estimate of the Bit Error Rate, a common measure of
accuracy of the obtained value is the confidence interval. The % confidence interval for
a simulated Bit Error Rate BER i returns two values BERi1 and BERi 2 such that with

% probability the real BERi is contained within the interval [ BERi1 , BERi 2 ] .
The minimum number of bit errors was set to 100 (minimum value recommended
by [21]), and the 98% confidence intervals were taken for every Bit Error Rate value. If
the Bit Error Rate values were too high (i.e. > 102 ) the simulation was performed again
with minimum number of errors set between 250-1000 to improve accuracy. The
maximum number of iterations was set to values as high as 108 with each iteration
containing at least 128 bits, depending on the case.

2.7

Assumptions
Some of the assumptions presented next are consequence of the theory presented

above; others were held to place focus on the non-linearity and multipath modeling:

Input power: the maximum average input power is 1.15mW, which is exactly the
saturation power.
Disregarded communication system errors: IQ imbalance, synchronization
errors of any kind (carrier synchronization, sampling frequency errors, FFT
synchronization for OFDM) and phase noise.
Wireless channel: multipath fading is quasi-static, path loss and shadowing are
negligible.
Fiber Optics system: since distance does not limit performance the fiber is linear
and does not suffer dispersion or any non-linear phenomena. Relative Intensity
Noise in the E/O and O/E adds to the noise floor.
Nonlinearity modeling: The laser diode and power amplifier are the main sources
of AM/AM and AM/PM nonlinear distortion in the RoF link. NLD depends only
on instantaneous input power.
16

Chapter 3

Uncoded OFDM in RoF Links

Though it was invented in 1970, OFDM would have to wait decades to become one of
todays leading modulation wireless schemes. Technologies such as CATV, IEEE802.11a
and Wi-Max [4] all use OFDM because of its spectral efficiency and robustness against
Inter-Symbol Interference and multipath fading [5]. This chapter begins by describing a
basic OFDM system from a mathematical and functional perspective. Though closed
form expressions for Bit Error Rate are not provided, a theoretical background is
developed in order to understand the consequences of multipath and AM/AM-AM/PM
non-linear distortions on the systems performance.

3.1
3.1.1

OFDM Fundamentals
Definition of OFDM

OFDM groups S baseband modulated symbols into blocks, assigning a different

subcarrier n (t ) to every symbol. The contents of each subcarrier within the block are
added up and transmitted, the procedure being repeated for every block. For a single
carrier modulation system were the duration of every symbol is Tm ; the duration of the
OFDM symbol will be T = S* Tm with subcarriers spaced 1/ T Hz apart, thus ensuring
orthogonality and providing spectral efficiency.

Figure 3.1 illustrates how the set of orthogonal subcarriers overlaps in frequency
for S = 8 subcarriers.

17

Magnitude

Frequency

Figure 3.1. OFDM orthogonal subcarriers in frequency for S=8.

To counterbalance ISI from the time-varying multipath channel, the guard interval
(otherwise known as cyclic prefix) is inserted: the last Tcp seconds of the OFDM symbol
are appended at the beginning. Then, the total duration of the OFDM symbol is

Tt = T + Tcp . Then, the LPE of the OFDM signal can be written as:

s (t ) =

S 1

s (t iT )

i = n = 0

(3.1)

where si (t ) is the ith OFDM symbol given by:

S 1

si (t ) = xn ,in (t )

(3.2)

n=0

and xn ,i is the nth modulation symbol (e.g. QAM, PSK) for the ith OFDM symbol. The
functions n (t ) form an S-dimensional orthonormal basis, and are given by:

1 j 2Tnt
e
, iTt t (i + 1)Tt

n (t ) = Tt

otherwise
0

18

(3.3)

Since the functions are orthonormal and the cyclic prefix is included, the
normalization constant for unit energy is

3.2

Tt .

OFDM in Multipath Fading

Consider the LPEs of a multipath fading channel with time varying impulse

response h ( , t ) with non-zero value in the range [0, max ] and Additive White Gaussian
Noise n(t ) . Then, for a transmitted signal s (t ) the received signal would be [33]:

r (t ) =

max

h ( , t ) s (t )d + n(t )

(3.4)

The output signal of the correlation receiver would then be written as:

yk ,i (t ) = r (t )k* (t )dt

(3.5)

Figure 3.2 illustrates the system.

n (t )
s (t )

s( t)

xk ,i

OFDM
Mod

Modulated
Symbols

s(t )

s (t )

Multipath
Channel

h ( , t )

r (t )
+

s(t )

Correlation
Receiver

s ( t)

y k ,i

Equalizer

Received
Symbols

s(t )

x k ,i

Estimated
Symbols

Figure 3.2. OFDM demodulator for a multipath fading channel.

19

Combining (3.1)-(3.5), assuming that the cyclic prefix duration Tcp is longer than
the maximum delay spread max of the multipath channel, and that the sampling instants
are perfectly known by the receiver, it can be shown that [33]:

yk , i =

T
hk ,i xk ,i + nk ,i
Tt

(3.6)

The interpretation of this equation is that if the radio channel without OFDM was
regarded as frequency selective, now it has been divided into S flat fading channels. This
is one of the greatest advantages of OFDM. The factor T / Tt appears because the
correlation receiver is only matched in the interval [0, T ] , while its normalization
constant is Tt , and it implies an SNR loss due to cyclic prefix. In the case of a system
with Tcp =

T + Tcp
1
T the SNR loss would be 10 log10
= 0.97dB . In practice, to
4
T

make OFDM realizable, IFFT is used to generate the subcarriers and the FFT is used to
generate the correlation receivers.

3.2.1

Channel Estimation and Equalization in OFDM

There is a wide variety of methods for channel estimation, as presented in [34] and [35].
They are categorized depending on the arrangement of the pilot subcarriers. If all
subcarriers are used as pilots for a certain number of OFDM symbols then the estimation
is said to be of block type. If only certain subcarriers are included in all transmitted
OFDM symbols then the estimation is said to be of comb type. Block type estimation is
used in IEEE802.11a and is suitable when the fading channel only varies after a long
number of OFDM symbol is transmitted.

The Least Squares (LS) estimation method for block type arrangement is the
simplest estimation method. If the OFDM signal is transmitted with energy (T + Tcp ) / T
(instead of unit energy) then (3.6) reduces to:

yk .i = hk ,i xk ,i + nk ,i

20

(3.7)

The LS estimate that minimizes yk ,i xk ,i hk ,i

is represented by [35]:

hk = yk ,i / xk ,i

(3.8)

where hk is the frequency estimate of the multipath fading channel IR. Subindex i has
been omitted in eq. (3.8) because the IR is assumed constant for several OFDM symbols.
Note that this estimator is unbiased because hk ,i = hk ,i but uses no information on the

noise variance. Using the estimate hk , the transmitted symbols can be estimated by:

xk ,i = yk ,i / hk

(3.9)

This procedure is also known as equalization. From eq. (3.7) the estimate of the IR can

also be written as hk = hk + nk ,i / hk . Thus, when there is a deep fade ( hk

is big), the

equalization will amplify the noise and degrade the BER performance of the system.
Though LS estimation is poor compared to other more complex methods such as
Minimum Mean Squared Error (MMSE), its simplicity makes it attractive for common
usage.

In this thesis the IR is estimated using a variant of LS as used in IEEE802.11a, in

which the same OFDM symbol is transmitted twice. From the received symbols the
estimate is calculated as:

(
hk =

yk ,1 + yk ,2 )
2 xk ,1= 2

(3.10)

where yk ,1 , yk ,2 correspond to the kth received baseband modulated symbols of the first
and second OFDM training symbols respectively, and xk ,1= 2 is the predefined transmitted
symbol sequence.

21

Though closed form expressions for Bit Error Rate have been derived for OFDM in
the presence of fading and AWGN [5, 36], these are significantly complex and depend on
the channel model, the channel estimation method and the baseband modulation scheme.

3.2.2

General OFDM system

Now that the basic procedure to generate an OFDM signal has been outlined, a general
outline can be presented for OFDM generation as shown in Figure 3.3.

Coding +
Interleaving

QAM
mod

S/P

Upsample

IFFT

Add
GI

P/S

OFDM Modulator
Tx Binary Data
Rx Binary Data

Deinterlaving
+ Decoding

RoF
Channel

QAM
demod

P/S

Equalize

Downsample

FFT

Remove
GI

OFDM Demodulator

Figure 3.3. General block diagram for OFDM system.

Though the diagram includes coding and interleaving these will not be considered
until Chapter 4. After the modulated symbols are disposed in parallel, the signal is
upsampled by inserting a number of zeros between them. As stated before, the subcarriers
in discrete time are generated using the IFFT and demodulated with the FFT. Note that
the guard interval is removed before performing demodulation since the correlation
receiver is matched to the FFT only. After down-sampling, equalization is performed to
estimate the transmitted symbols. The channel estimation and equalization methods
presented in Section 3.2.1 were designed for multipath fading channels only. Thus, in the
presence of a non-linear system these can also be a source of bit error, as will be shown
with simulation results in Chapter 5. Table 3.1 presents the simulation parameters.

22

S/P

Number of subcarriers
64
Modulation
4 and 16 QAM
Nr. of FFT/IFFT points
256
Input Back-Off
0, 4 and 10 dB
Eb/No min. resolution
1 and 3dB
Eb/No range
0 16dB
Table 3.1. Simulation parameters for the OFDM system .

The number of FFT/IFFT points was chosen to be four times the number of
subcarriers, because the sampling frequency must be augmented in nonlinear systems due
to spectrum spreading effects.

Due to the spectrum spreading effects of nonlinear systems, it is recommended to

adjust the sampling frequency experimentally until its increase does not affect the
nonlinearly distorted signal [21]. Following this procedure the number of IFFT/FFT
points was chosen to be four times the number of subcarriers.

3.3

AM/AM distortion on OFDM signals

In section 2.4 it was said that for a system to be purely memoryless, the output may show
only AM/AM distortion. Consider the non-linear system shown in Figure 3.4.

s(t)

y(t)

F
Non-linear
operator

Figure 3.4. Non-linear system

If the operator F is memoryless, continuous and differentiable over some interval [0, ] ;
then the output of the system in the same interval can be represented as [37]:

y (t ) = lim N n x n (t )

(3.11)

n=0

23

n =

F ( n ) (0)
n!

(3.12)

where the term in the right-hand side of eq. (3.11) is the Taylor Series expansion of the
system, N is the order of the expansion, n is the nth coefficient, and F ( n ) (0) denotes the
nth

derivative

of

evaluated

at

zero.

For

an

input

of

the

form

s (t ) = A(t ) cos(2 f c t + (t )) , the LPE of the first-zone output (i.e. the output near the
band of the carrier frequency f c ) can be written as [21]:

( N 1) / 2
2m + 1
2 m +1 j ( t )
y (t ) = 22mm+1
e
A(t )
m =1 2 m + 1

(3.13)

which has exactly the same form as eq. (2.8) with f = 0 [38]. Equation (3.13) can also be
written in the form:

( N 1) / 2 2 m +1 2m + 1
2m
j ( t )
(
)
= U { A(t )} s (t )
y (t ) =
A
t
A(t )e

2m
m =1 2 m + 1

(3.14)

is a non-linear operator depending on the amplitude of the input signal. If U

where U {}
is extended for the OFDM symbol duration T and expanded in Fourier Series:

U (t ) =

ue

i =

i
j 2 t
T

dt , 0 t T

(3.15)

with Fourier complex coefficients defined as:

i
j 2 t
1
T
ui = U (t )e
dt
T 0

The nth OFDM symbol can be written:

24

(3.16)

S 1

sn (t ) = sk , n e

j 2 k

t
T

(3.17)

k =0

Then the output has the following form:

t
t
j 2 k j 2 i
S 1
T
T
y (t ) = u0 sn (t ) + ui sk ,n e
e
i =
k =0

(3.18)

i0

Interchanging the order of summation and substituting m = k + i :

t
j 2 m

T
y (t ) = u0 s (t ) + sk ,n um k e
k =0
mm=
k
S 1

(3.19)

The double summation term in eq. (3.19) represents Inter-Carrier Interference. If a

single carrier system was being used AM/AM distortion would only change the amplitude
of the baseband modulated symbols. However, because OFDM subcarriers loose
orthogonality in the presence of an AM/AM nonlinear system, phase distortion is also
produced. Furthermore, the distortion function U (t ) is a random process that depends
only on the baseband symbols and hence changes for every OFDM symbol.

A useful definition to have a measure of input average power relative to the

saturation power is Input Back-Off (IBO). It can be calculated in decibels from:

P
IBO = 10 log in
Psat

(3.20)

where Pin is the average input power to the AM/AM non-linear system, and Psat is the
saturation power of the non-linearity, which for this application is taken to be 1.15mW.

Figure 3.5 shows the constellation of a 4-QAM OFDM under AM/AM for
increasing average input power. Note how for very low powers the variance around the
transmitted constellation points is low, while no constellation point at the output of the
25

system can reach the highest input power levels. This is due to the saturation and clipping
effect.

Figure 3.5. AM/AM distortion in 4-QAM OFDM for input average power
varying from IBO=10dB up to twice saturation (IBO = -3dB).

Figure 3.6 shows the effect of the distortion on a single carrier signal as compared
to OFDM. While the single carrier signal does not show but amplitude reduction for the
outer points, the OFDM signal has also an ammount of dispersion due to ICI.

Figure 3.6. Comparisson of AM/AM distortion effect in 16-QAM OFDM and

single carrier signals for an average input power of 1.1mW.
26

3.4

AM/AM-AM/PM

distortion

on

OFDM

signals
From eq. (2.8) the output of a phase-distorted non-linear system would be:
j ( t ) + f { A ( t )} )
jf A ( t )
y (t ) = A(t )e (
= s (t )e { }

(3.21)

y (t ) = s (t )V { A(t )}

(3.22)

where V {}
is a non-linear operator acting on the magnitude of s (t ) . Hence, the output
of a non-linear system that presents both AM/AM and AM/PM non-linear distortions can
be written as:

y (t ) = s (t )U { A(t )}V { A(t )} = s (t )W { A(t )}

(3.23)

This expression has the same form as the second term in eq. (3.14) and hence can
also be expanded using Fourier Series. Combining equations (3.17) and (3.19), the ouput
of the correlation receiver for the ith OFDM symbol would be [7]:

yk ,i = w0 sk ,i +

S 1

n = 0, n k

wk n sk ,i + nk ,i

(3.24)

where wm is the mth coefficient of the Fourier Series expanssion:

wm =

m
j 2 t
1
T
W
t
e
dt
(
)
T 0

(3.25)

and nk ,i indicates the presence of AWGN.

Figure 3.7 shows the effect of AM/PM distortion on OFDM and single carrier signals for
4-QAM modulation. Though the input power is low, the rotation (as can be read from
27

Figure 2.2) is around 135 . This implies that no symbol will received correctly unless
this common phase error is compensated for. Again, because of the effect of ICI on
OFDM the signal also presents disperssion. This dispersion will expand through the
complex plane with increasing average input power as illustrated in Figure 3.8.

Figure 3.7. Comparisson of AM/PM effect on OFDM and single carrier signals
for 0.1mW average input power.

Figure 3.8. AM/PM distortion in 4-QAM OFDM for average input power
varying from IBO = 10dB up to twice saturation (IBO = -3dB).

28

The combined effect of AM/AM and AM/PM can be observed in Figure 3.9. The
difference with Figure 3.8 is that as the average input power increases the distorted
symbols tend to clutter around the center of the complex plane instead of spreading out.
This phenomena is of course produced by the output power restriction that AM/AM
imposses.

Figure 3.9. Combined AMAM and AM/PM distortions in 4-QAM OFDM for
average input power varying frorm IBO = 10dB up to saturation (1.15mW).

These last sections have been devoted to describing the AM/AM and AM/PM nonlinearities. Their effect on the OFDM-RoF system will be further explained in Chapter 5.

29

Chapter 4

Coded OFDM in RoF links

The present chapter is intended to provide a basis for the comprehension of the structure
and capabilities of BCH and Reed-Solomon codes when applied to the OFDM-RoF link,
explaining the criteria by which they were selected. Some elementary coding theory is
presented first to facilitate understanding. For a thorough description of the coding theory
refer to [39] and [40].

4.1
4.1.1

Definitions in Coding Theory

Definition of Galois Fields

An algebraic field is a set of elements that is closed under addition and multiplication.
Both operations must be associative and commutative. A zero element must exist such
that a + 0 = a , and an inverse element such that a + ( a) = 0 . There must be a one
element such that 1 a = 1 and a multiplicative inverse element so that a (a 1 ) = 1 .
Substraction

and

division

are

defined

as

a b = a + (b)

and

a / b = a ( b 1 ) respectively. A Galois Field is a finite algebraic set with q elements and

is denoted GF (q) .

Based on the field GF ( p) were p is a prime number, it is possible to build an

extended field GF ( p m ) = a0 x 0 + a1 x1 + ... + am 1 x m 1 where ai GF ( p ), 0 i m 1 ;

that is to say, each element of the polynomial belongs to the original field. Adding two
elements in GF ( p m ) is equivalent to adding their polynomials element by element in
modulo p. However, multiplication of two elements in the extended field must be done in
modulo p( x) to ensure closure over the field GF ( p m ) , where p( x) is a prime

30

polynomial. A prime polynomial is one that can not be factored into lower order
polynomials in the original field GF ( p ) and whose highest order coefficient equals one.

The elements of a GF (q ) are often represented as 0,1, , 2 ,..., q 2

is the primitive element of the field, that is,

where

q 1 = 1 . In general,

n = Remainder ( x n / p( x) ) .
Galois Fields are a fundamental tool in defining the encoding and decoding

( )

algorithms. In particular, BCH and Reed Solomon codes operate in GF 2m

though

inputs and outputs for BCH are defined in GF (2) .

4.1.2

Block error channel coding

A block error code C (n, k ) defined in GF (q ) consists of a set of codewords each

with n symbols (n > k ) , each symbol belonging to GF (q) . Encoding is the process of
adding redundancy to the k-symbol message according to a mathematical set of rules, thus
mapping it to a codeword. The decoder will exploit redundancy to attempt to map to the
transmitted message despite the errors introduced by the channel.

4.1.3

Linear, cyclic and systematic codes

A block code C (n, k ) defined in GF (q ) with length n is said to be linear if and only if
its q k codewords form a k-dimensional subspace of the vector space of all the n-tuples
over GF (q ) . Linear codes have the important property that the addition of two
codewords is also a codeword [40]. A linear block code is said to be cyclic if for every
codeword c = (c0 , c1 ,..., cn 1 ) C exists a codeword c ' = (cn 1 , c0 , c1 ,..., cn 2 ) C .

The code is said to be systematic if the coded word c contains the message word

m unaltered with the n k redundancy symbols placed before or after it.

31

4.1.4

Minimum Hamming distance

The Hamming distance between a pair of codewords is defined as the number of

locations in which their respective elements differ[20]. The Hamming weight of a
codeword is the number of nonzero elements in the codeword. The minimum distance

d min for a linear block code is the smallest Hamming distance between any pair of
codewords in the code. Hence, for a linear block code, d min is the minimum Hamming
weight of the nonzero codewords. A linear block code can correct up to t errors if and
only if

t ( d min 1)
2

(4.1)

where denotes rounding to the nearest lower integer. Minimum distance is a decisive
property on the performance of a linear block code.

4.1.5

Decoding Failure

Sometimes a received codeword has a Hamming distance greater than t to any of the
possible codewords in the systematic code C, that is, it has a number of errors ne , were

t < ne d min . In this situation a decoding failure occurs and for a systematic code, the
decoder will discard the redundant symbols and simply output the symbols corresponding
to the received message, instead of trying to decode which in many cases increases the
number of errors.

4.2

BCH Codes

BCH codes were named after their inventors Bose, Chaudhuri and Hocquenhem in the
1960s. BCH are linear cyclic codes, popular because of the different parameters that can
be varied, as well as for their excellent mathematical properties [20].

When an arbitrary cyclic code is constructed there is no guarantee about its

minimum distance, which is usually found with computer searches. BCH codes are
32

designed based on the BCH bound [40], however this work uses only binary primitive

BCH codes. For any positive integer m 3 and t 2m 1 / 2 exists a binary primitive
BCH t error correcting code with block length n = 2m 1 , number of message bits

k n mt and minimum distance d min 2t + 1 .

4.2.1

Probability of Bit Error in Memoryless Binary Symmetric Channels

Given a binary symmetric channel with cross-probability p, the probability of decoding

the received codeword in to an erroneous message is given by:

P( E ) =

( d min 1) / 2

j = d min

Aj

k =0

Pk j

(4.2)

where Aj is the number of words of weight j, and Pk j is the probability that a received
word is exactly Hamming distance k from a weight j binary code word.

k
j n
Pk j =

r = 0 k r r

j j k +2r
n j +k 2r
(1 p )
p

(4.3)

Parameter p can be calculated from the uncoded probability expression that depends on
the modulation and specific channel being used (e.g. AWGN, multipath, etc.) In order to
compute the exact bit error probability, it is required to know the weight of the
information block associated with each codeword, which is in many cases impossible. It
is simpler to bound the Bit Error Rate with P ( E ) [40]:

1
P ( E ) Pb ( E ) P ( E )
k

4.3

(4.4)

Reed-Solomon Codes

A Reed-Solomon code is a q m -ary BCH code of length q m 1 . The generator

polynomial for a t error correcting Reed-Solomon code has the form [40]:
33

g ( x) = ( x b )( x b +1 ) ... ( x b + 2t 1 )

(4.5)

( )

where is the primitive element of the field GF q m . This work uses only extensions

( ) and generator polynomials with b =1. That is to say, m bits

of the binary field GF 2m

are grouped to form a code symbol, and k code symbols will be grouped to form a codeword with mk bits.
The minimum distance d min of a code is bounded by d min ( n k ) + 1 . ReedSolomon codes have the important quality of being Maximum Distance Separable since
for any RS code d min = ( n k ) + 1 . Also, given an ( n, k ) t error correcting RS code

( ) the codeword length is n = 2

operating in GF 2m

1 and the parity check size (i.e.

number of redundant symbols) is n k = 2t .

4.3.1

Shortened Reed-Solomon codes

A shortened RS(n,k) code is one with codeword length n < 2m 1 . Shortened codes
implicitly use an (n ', k ') encoder with n ' = 2m 1 and k ' = k + (n ' n) . To encode, the
message is first padded with n ' n zeros and then encoded with the (n ', k ') encoder.
Shortened RS codes are commonly used to obtain a number of different code rates and
block sizes. All Reed-Solomon codes used are shortened codes.

4.3.2

Probability of Bit Error

For the case of an RS (n, k ) code equation (4.2) will still hold, only the probability that a
received word is exactly Hamming distance k from a weight-j codeword Pk j should be rewritten as:

k
j n j j k + r
k r
r
Pk j =
(1 p ) s n j r (1 s )

p
r =0 k r r

34

(4.6)

( )

where s is the probability that symbol i GF 2m = 0, ,... 2

is received if that

symbol was transmitted, and p is the probability that any other symbol is received when

i was transmitted. This channel model determined by ( s, p) is equivalent to the Binary

Symmetric Channel for the non-binary case, and is called the Uniform Discrete
Symmetric Channel (USDC). In this case, the probability of bit error would be bounded
by:

1
P ( E ) Pb ( E ) P ( E )
km

(4.7)

For a complete derivation of these expressions refer to [40].

4.4

Decoding and Comparison of BCH and

Reed-Solomon Codes

There are several decoding algorithms for BCH and RS codes. In the 1960s Peterson
provided a decoding algorithm especially for binary BCH codes that was later extended to
non-binary BCH and hence applicable to Reed-Solomon. However, for this algorithm the
decoding complexity increases with t 2 . The Berlekamp-Massey algorithm is fast and
shift-register based, and it was a breaktrough because complexity is proportional to t only.
Since it is very well known in the coding field it will be used in this thesis. For a detailed
description see [40]. Note however that regardless of the algorithm used, decoding
complexity is greater for Reed-Solomon than for binary BCH because not only the
position of the error has to be found, but also the error magnitude in every position.
Because decoding is more demanding than encoding, a big RS code can be used in the
UL, but for DL the codes complexity must be moderate since the mobile unit will
decode.

Errors occurring from the transmission channel can roughly be categorized into
random errors and burst errors. While Reed-Solomons burst correction capability is
much higher, if the burst is distributed over several symbols RS decoding will yield error
while binary BCH will manage, because the position of the burst will not be symbol
dependant. This makes RS codes strongly reliant on interleaving depth. In general, the
35

error correction performance of any code will vary according to the characteristics of the
channel. For a suitable description of the channel, bit error probability is insufficient and
additional information such as the distribution of bursts and gaps occurring between the
bursts is also needed [41].

The following table contrasts the differences in structure and capabilities of BCH
and RS codes.

Binary BCH
Reed-Solomon
Implementation
Encoding
simple
simple
Decoding
simple
complex
Error correction capabilites
Burst m
quite good
needs more redundancy
Burst < m
good
excellent
Random
channel dependent
channel and interl. dependent
reasonable
fairly complex
Hardware complexity
Table 4.1. Comparisson of BCH and RS codes (modified from [41]).

4.5

Selection of Code Specifications

( )

In a GF 2m , block codes require k code symbols at the input to provide n symbols at

the output, where each symbol has m bits. Since a non-linearly distorted noisy fading
channel is likely to present burst errors, interleaving can be used to redistribute the errors
between different code words and optimize the codes performance. The interleaving
depth is defined as the number of interleaved codewords. Given n and k , as the
interleaving depth increases so will the latency (i.e. the input/ouput time delay of the
communication system). Depending on the application, latency is intented to be
minimized in wireless networks [41].

For a given modulation order M and number of subcarriers S, the number of

OFDM-transmitted bits in N OFDM transmitted symbols is fixed to N OFDM S log 2 ( M ) . The
number of uncoded bits due to the mismatch between the code and OFDM specifications
would be:

N ub = S log 2 ( M ) N OFDM mN cw n
36

(4.8)

where N cw is the number of coded words, n is the number of output symbols for each
codeword and m is the number of bits per code symbol (for BCH m = 1 ). Note that

N cw is in fact the interleaving depth and that N ub will be a loss of information since these
bits are not information bits or redundancy bits added by the encoder, but will be padded
by the OFDM modulator. Therefore it is desirable for N ub to be zero, and to find a
balance between

N OFDM and N cw knowing that n and m depend on the code

specifications, M takes values of 4 and 16, and that S is fixed to 64 (see Table 3.1).

Though references on BCH and RS in OFDM are scarce, [42] and [43] provided a
good guideline for code parameter selection. Based on these examples and on the
considerations presented above, the COFDM-RoF codes along with system parameters
are presented in Table 4.2 and Table 4.3.

4QAM
16QAM
BCH Code
Reff
Ncw
Nub
Nofdm Ncw
Nub Nofdm
(n,k,t)
(31,16,3)
0.5
4
4
1
8
8
1
(63,30,10)
0.47
4
4
2
4
4
1
(127,64,10)
0.5
2
2
2
4
4
2
Table 4.2. Proposed BCH code parameters for the Coded OFDM Radio over
Fiber system.

RS Code
m
Reff
Mod.
Ncw
Nub
Nofdm
(n,k,t)
(12,6,3)
4
0.5 4QAM
8
0
3
(32,22,5)
6
0.69
2
0
3
(12,6,3)
4
0.5 16QAM
16
0
3
(34,24,5)
6
0.7
5
4
4
(32,20,6)
8
0.63
4
0
4
Table 4.3. Proposed Reed-Solomon code parameters for the Coded OFDM
Radio over Fiber system.

All parameters listed in the tables have already been defined except Reff which stands for
effective code rate, that is, the codes rate taking into account the number of uncoded bits.
It is given by:

R eff =

mN cw k
mN cw n + N ub

(4.9)

37

It is clear that if N ub = 0 then Reff = R = k / n . The latency due to interleaving can be

calculated as mkN cwTb where Tb is the time duration of one input bit to the encoder. From
[8], the duration of Tb in 4 and 16-QAM respectively was found to be 41.6ns and 20.8ns.
The highest latency was for the RS(34,24) m = 6 code used with 16-QAM presented the
highest latency (14.9us), while the lowest one (5.3us) was for the BCH(63,30) in 4-QAM.
These values are small for real-time application such as voice and video.

38

Chapter 5

Bit Error Rate Simulations

Since the simulation methodology was already described in Section 2.6 and the system
parameters given in Table 3.1, this chapter presents the Bit Error Rates of the OFDM-RoF
system for the uncoded and coded cases. For both, the parameters varied were IBO (0, 4
and 10dB) and Eb/No in a range of 0 to 24dB depending on the case.

5.1

Uncoded OFDM

The following section presents BER simulations for 4 and 16 QAM Uncoded-OFDM for
the cases of AM/AM, AM/PM and AM/AM-AM/PM in AWGN and multipath fading.

10

-1

Bit Error Rate

10

-2

10

IBO= 0dB
IBO = 4dB
IBO = 10dB
IBO = 10dB - with ch.est.
AWGN

-3

10

-4

10

4
Eb/No (dB)

Figure 5.1. 4-QAM OFDM Bit Error Rate for AM/AM in AWGN.

39

10

-2

Bit Error Rate

10

-4

10

-6

10

IBO= 0dB
IBO = 4dB
IBO = 10dB
IBO = 10dB - with ch.est.
AWGN

-8

10

-10

10

8
EbNo (dB)

10

12

14

16

Figure 5.2. 16-QAM OFDM Bit Error Rate for AM/AM in AWGN.

Figure 5.1 and Figure 5.2 show BER for 4 and 16-QAM modulations for different
IBO without and with channel estimation. From the comparisson of both it is clear that
channel estimation worsens BER for pure AM/AM distortion. As mentioned in Chapter 3,
this happens because of the Linear Least Squares Estimator being applied to a non-linear
system. Also it can be observed that as IBO increases, the systems response becomes
more linear so that the BER aproaches the theoretical performance in AWGN without
NLD.
0

10

-1

10

Bit Error Rate

-2

10

-3

10

IBO= 0dB
IBO = 4dB
IBO = 10dB
IBO = 10dB - no ch.est.
AWGN

-4

10

-5

10

-6

10

10
Eb/No (dB)

Figure 5.3. 4-QAM OFDM Bit Error Rate for AM/PM in AWGN.
40

15

Figure 5.3

and Figure 5.4 show the AM/PM case. In this situation, because

channel estimation removes common phase error only with its use can a reasonable BER
be achieved, nevertheless, BER is much higher than the theoretical AWGN reference.

Bit Error Rate

10

-1

10

IBO= 0dB
IBO = 4dB
IBO = 10dB
-2

10

10

15

Eb/No (dB)

Figure 5.4. 16-QAM OFDM Bit Error Rate for AM/PM in AWGN.

10

-1

Bit Error Rate

10

-2

10

4-QAM - IBO = 0
4-QAM - IBO = 4
4-QAM - IBO = 10
16-QAM - IBO = 0
16-QAM - IBO = 4
16-QAM - IBO = 10

-3

10

-4

10

10

15

Eb/No (dB)

Figure 5.5. 4 and 16-QAM OFDM Bit Error Rate for AM/AM-AM/PM in
AWGN.
41

In the case of combined AM/AM and AM/PM (Figure 5.5) 16-QAM performance
is already poor even if multipath has not been included and high IBO is used. In the UL,
since multipath is introduced before the nonlinearities (Figure 5.6) the BER increases
substantially compared to DL (Figure 5.7).

10

Bit Error Rate

-1

10

4-QAM - IBO = 0
4-QAM - IBO = 4
4-QAM - IBO = 10
16-QAM - IBO = 0
16-QAM - IBO = 4
16-QAM - IBO = 10

-2

10

-3

10

10

15

Eb/No (dB)

Figure 5.6. 4 and 16-QAM OFDM Bit Error Rate for the RoF Uplink.

10

-1

Bit Error Rate

10

-2

10

4-QAM - IBO = 0
4-QAM - IBO = 4
4-QAM - IBO = 10
16-QAM - IBO = 0
16-QAM - IBO = 4
16-QAM - IBO = 10

-3

10

-4

10

10
Eb/No (dB)

Figure 5.7. 4 and 16-QAM OFDM Bit Error Rate for the RoF Downlink.
42

15

5.2

Coded OFDM

The codes applied to the system were described in detail in Section 4.4 (see Table 4.2 and
Table 4.3). A summary of both tables is given in Table 5.1 presenting the code-rate and
number of symbols the code can correct.

Modulation

Code(n,k,t)
BCH(31,16,3)
RS(12,6,3)
4-QAM
BCH(63,30,10)
RS(32,22,5)
BCH(127,64,10)
BCH(31,16,3)
RS(12,6,3)
16-QAM BCH(63,30,10) RS(34,24,5)
BCH(127,64,10) RS(32,20,6)
Table 5.1. Codes used in the OFDM-RoF link with 4 and 16QAM modulation.
n: length of codeword, k: length of message, t: number of correctable errors.

10

-1

Bit Error Rate

10

-2

10

-3

10

BCH(31,16)
BCH(127,64)
RS(12,6), m = 4
Uncoded

-4

10

-5

10

8
10
Eb/No (dB)

12

14

16

Figure 5.8. Comparisson of BCH and RS in the Uplink using 4-QAM

modulation and IBO = 10dB.

Figure 5.8 compares the smallest BCH and RS codes with the largest ReedSolomon used in 4QAM modulation with large IBO (10dB). Though the UL is the worst
case scenario, the figure shows that coding can considerably lower the BER. The best
code in this case is the BCH(127,64) achieving BER of 104 with Eb/No of 8dB only.

43

The Reed-Solomon codes that are combined with 16QAM have big block length.
Particularly the RS(32,20) can correct 6 symbols of 8 bits each. Despite this fact, Figure
5.9 shows that the biggest code worsens BER even if the SNR is high and none of the
codes is capable of improving performance at least by one order of magnitude. Also,
remember that DL with IBO 10 is actually the best case for 16QAM modulation.

Bit Error Rate

10

-1

10

BCH(127,64)
RS(12,6)
RS(32,20)
Uncoded
-2

10

10

15
Eb/No (dB)

20

25

30

Figure 5.9. Comparisson of BCH and RS in Downlink using 16-QAM

modulation with IBO = 10 dB

Figure 5.10 shows all the BCH codes working on the UL with 4QAM. Significant
benefit from all codes can be observed for Eb/No greater than 16dB, and if its value is
further increased then all the codes can reduce bit error probabilities by a factor greater
than ten. Again, BCH(127,64) presents a steeper slope and promises a lower BER if SNR
is further increased. Figure 5.11 compares the largest RS code with the smallest and
biggest BCH codes in 4QAM. Surprisingly, the RS code performs the worst despite its
size. Because DL is less harmfull to the transmitted signal than the UL, using the same
IBO as before lower BER is obtained. This time however, the best code is BCH(31,16).

44

10

Bit Error Rate

-1

10

-2

10

BCH(31,16)
BCH(63,30)
BCH(127,64)
Uncoded

-3

10

10

15

20

25

Eb/No (dB)

Figure 5.10. Comparisson of BCH codes in the Uplink using 4-QAM modulation
and IBO = 4dB.

10

-1

Bit Error Rate

10

-2

10

BCH(31,16)
BCH(127,64)
RS(32,22)
Uncoded

-3

10

-4

10

10

15

20

25

Eb/No (dB)

Figure 5.11. Comparisson of large RS code with BCH in the Downlink using 4QAM modulation and IBO=4dB.

45

Figure 5.12 contrasts 4 and 16-QAM modulations in the UL using 4 and 10dB
IBO for each combined with BCH(127,64). Despite the low transmission power
used for 16-QAM the beneffit BCH(127,64) brings to the system is negligible,
while in the case of 4-QAM its error correcting power is clearly shown. The
bottom line is that even using the overall strongest code for the OFDM-RoF link
4-QAM modulation must be used in order to see any benefitts.

10

Bit Error Rate

-1

10

-2

10

BCH(127,64), 16QAM
Uncoded, 16QAM
BCH(127,64), 4QAM
Uncoded, 4QAM

-3

10

10

15
Eb/No (dB)

20

25

30

Figure 5.12. Uplink comparisson of 16 and 4-QAM modulations with

BCH(127,64) using 10dB and 4 dB IBO respectively.

5.3

Discussion

Section 5.1 showed that channel estimation affects negatively the Bit Error Rate when
only AM/AM is present, but it is a requirement with AM/PM because it removes the
continuous phase error. For AM/PM distortion the effects on BER are more severe,
especially in 16-QAM (see Figure 5.4). Also, because the UL presents fading before the
non-linearities its probability of bit error is higher than for DL, this is particularly evident
in 4-QAM modulation.

Section 5.2 was interesting because it measured the impact of coding on the
system. In general, it was shown that even small BCH codes can achieve BER reduction
of at least one order of magnitude for a moderate Input Back-Off ( 4dB) and digital SNR
46

of 16dB when 4-QAM modulation is used. However, in the best case scenario for 16QAM (i.e. IBO = 10 dB in DL) not any BCH nor the biggest RS codes were able to make
a significant difference. Though BCH(31,16) worked the best in 4-QAM DL with IBO =
4dB, from all the simulations that were run, the overall best code was BCH(127,64) for
UL and DL. Another code with good performance in several cases was the RS(12,6).

No results were shown for the RS(34,24) in 16-QAM due to its low performance. A
question that has remained unanswered is why the big RS codes did not work as well as
the smallest one. Some of the literature reviewed [4, 25] views AM/AM and AM/PM on
the received constellation symbols as a gain factor plus a non-linear distortion noise. This
means that even when the noise power is low, the non-linear distortion noise imposes a
noise floor. Big codes require high interleaving depth and relatively high SNR to show
their superiority over the small ones. Because of the noise added from NLD such a limit
is never reached. Another possible cause is that bursts are spanning over two or more RS
codewords (see Section 4.4).

Summarizing, when using 4-QAM with IBO of 4dB for UL and DL the
BCH(31,16) is the best option in terms of the performance/complexity ratio. In the same
situation but with 10dB IBO, the BCH(127,64) can yield much lower BER than all the
others. For 16-QAM neither IBO or coding make a big difference regarding bit error
probability, so either a more advanced coding technique or a different alternative must be
found.

47

Chapter 6

Conclusions and Future Work

6.1

Conclusion

Radio over Fiber links are a prominent solution to supply high capacity at low cost for
wireless applications, while OFDM is dominant in todays radio standards for its spectral
efficiency and strength against multipath. Despite the robustness of both systems, when
they combine the non-linearities from the Electrical to Optical Conversion and Power
Amplifier (AM/AM and AM/PM distortions) produce Inter-Carrier Interference thus
limiting the overall system performance.

BCH and Reed-Solomon are powerful linear cyclic block codes with different error
correction capabilities depending on decoding complexity. After trying both with
different code rates and block sizes it was found that they can significantly enhance the
OFDM-RoF system performance when combined with a reasonable Input Back Off (i.e.
at least 4dB) and a robust constellation such as 4-QAM, while for a high order
modulation scheme such as 16-QAM low Bit Error Rates are unachievable. This becomes
a limiting factor for high data rate transmission. When using an IBO of 4dB the
BCH(31,16) is the right choice in terms of improvement/complexity ratio for it reduces
BER at least in one order of magnitude and it is recommended for DL. For an IBO greater
than 4dB the BCH(127,64) can lower BER far more than other codes reaching values of

105 for a moderate SNR (i.e. Eb/No > 20 dB) and is hence better for the UL.
Linear Least Squares estimation as used in the IEEE802.11a was implemented.
Even if it removes the mean phase shift from AM/PM distortion, it contributes negatively
to the poor uncoded performance. OFDM is massively used because it goes to the core of
the wireless channel problem: frequency selective fading is transformed to a set of flat
fading channels compensated for using channel estimation and equalization. Though
under certain conditions coding adds robustness to the OFDM-RoF link, it does not deal
48

in a direct way with the combination of multipath and non-linearities, nor the error
arrissing from linear channel estimation.

6.2

Future Work

The subject under study comprehends three broad fields: system identification for linear
and non-linear system modeling, baseband modulation theory and channel coding
techniques. This section discusses possible future work on each field.

The evaluation of the COFDM - RoF link Bit Error Rate has been done on the basis
of an extension of a single carrier model for a non-linear channel with AWGN. It is still
left to verify with measurements the adequacy and validity of such an extension using as
input an OFDM signal instead of a single carrier. Based on this results the model could be
modified to represent non-linear distortion with greater accuracy using Volterra series or
with variations of Wiener and Hammerstein systems [22, 37].

Regarding modulation theory, the polynomial model for AM/AM and AM/PM
distortions yields computational and mathematical simplicity. Nonetheless, an analytical
expression for the Probability of Symbol and Bit Error Rate using similar models is
subject of several publications [4, 23, 24]. It remains to find a closed form expression for
BER and SER for the model being used when combined with fading and the channel
estimation error.

Coding, on the other hand, is practically a science in its own right. Though this
thesis has provided a useful insight in the application of strong linear block codes to the
OFDM-RoF link, there are several powerful Forward Error Correcting codes that would
be worth studying. There are two important codes with iterative decoding. Turbo codes
are very popular because they are capable of achieving extremely low BER ( < 106 ) even
with high noise power (Eb/No < 4 dB) and are very near to the Shannon Limit [39]. The
other alternative is Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes , they also approach the
Shannon Limit but have the advantage over Turbo of not requiring long interleaving
length for good performance and their error floor occurs at much lower BER [44]. Turbo
codes are an example of concatenated codes, but there are other combinations such as RSConvolutional Codes that have shown to give high performance in multipath [45] and
might as well work in the RoF link. Interleaving can also be a key factor. For the results
49

presented in Chapter 5 random interleaving in a bit level has been used. Reed-Solomons
performance could be enhanced if interleaving was applied in a code-symbol level [40].
Also, adaptative interleaving is a possibility using Channel State information from the
transmitter based on the fact that each subcarrier has a different SNR and subcarriers with
high SNR are more reliable.

The simulation results showed that the Linear Least Squares channel estimator
increased BER when pure AM/AM distortion is present. Non-linear channel estimation
and equalization techniques for OFDM have been undertaken in several works already
and their application to the RoF link could yield suprising results. Specially, if pilot
subcarriers are used, one could benefit from the quasi-static nature of the non-linearmultipath channel using iterative estimation. Another alternative of similar nature would
be Digital Pre-Distortion. It has been applied successfully to a channel with AWGN and
non-linearities for a single carrier system to compensate for the AM/PM distortion [46]. It
would be interesting to see to what extent would it benefit the performance of an RoFOFDM system. Finally, to deal with AM/AM distortion Peak to Average Power Ratio
(PAPR) reduction methods could be used to limit the damage of the lasers diode clipping
effect on the OFDM signal.

50

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