2018 18th IEEE International Conference on Communication Technology
Research and Experimental Demonstration of UDWDM Transmission and
Wavelength Conversion for Optical Satellite Communication Based on OFC
Bin Wu, Hongxi Yin*, Fangyuan Xing, Xiuyang Ji
Lab of Optical Communications and Photonic Technology
School of Information and Communication Engineering, Dalian University of Technology
Dalian 116023, China
e-mail: hxyin@dlut.edu.cn
Abstract—An ultra-dense wavelength division multiplexing
(UDWDM) transmission and wavelength conversion scheme
for optical satellite networks based on optical frequency comb
(OFC) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. A proof-
of-concept experimental system is established and the test
results indicate that the proposed scheme can realize all-optical
wavelength conversion and flexible bandwidth allocation
through the combination of OFC and wavelength selective
switch (WSS). The bit-error rate (BER) of the baseband data is
less than 10-9, and the BER of the generated orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) data after
transmission is less than the threshold of forward error
correction (FEC) coding. The scheme offers a solution for
wavelength conversion onboard and increases the spectrum
efficiency, which is significantly promising for the flexible-
bandwidth optical satellite networks in the future.
Keywords-optical satellite communication; optical frequency
comb; wavelength conversion; OOFDM; spectrum efficiency
I. INTRODUCTION
To meet the demands of future high-speed data
communication, remote high bandwidth multimedia
applications and integration with the terrestrial 5G
technology, satellite communication systems are evolving
from traditional TV broadcasting systems to large bandwidth
and high throughput satellite (HTS) systems [1]. It is
estimated that next generation satellite communication
systems will require the capacity of one Terabits/s (1000
Gbps) by 2020 [2]. However, the current approaches
including increasing the number of beams and changing the
operational frequency to the Ka band will find it extremely
difficult to fulfill the requirements of big-data high-speed
transmission and flexible switching in the future. Due to the
advantages of bandwidth and transmission properties, optical
satellite communication has become the ideal solution for the
future HTS systems [3, 4].
With respect to the optical satellite communication, most
studies focused on the WDM and wavelength allocation
method to improve the transmission capacity and spectrum
efficiency of inter-
LIGHT project of the European Space Agency (ESA)
proposed the frequency down conversion of microwave
978-1-5386-7635-6/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 767
signals with multiple optical local oscillators (LOs) based on
the wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) [7]. However,
owing to the bursty and differences of satellite services, the
scheme of allocating fixed bandwidth to different services
(occupying one wavelength) is likely to cause the waste of
spectrum resources. The OFDM technology can further
improve the spectrum efficiency of optical satellite networks
because of the support for dynamic bandwidth allocation.
Additionally, OFDM modulation technology distributes the
data on several paralleled subcarriers, which will
significantly ease the satellite-ground link requirements for
the quality of the atmospheric channel, omit the process of
RF sampling with high-speed analog-to-digital converter
(ADC) and converting to digital signals, and greatly decrease
the load power consumption onboard [8].
In the aspects of routing and wavelength assignment
(RWA) issues of space optical networks, if there is no
wavelength conversion capability in the optical networks, the
wavelength continuity constraint must be satisfied, i.e., only
if the same wavelength is available on all the links of a route,
the link will be established successfully, which will lead to
an increase of the blocking probability [9]. Although a
wavelength conversion unit onboard can solve this issue, it
will increase the power consumption, volume, weight and
complexity of the system correspondingly. To our
knowledge, the discussion and system implementation of
wavelength conversion and UDWDM schemes in the optical
satellite networks have not been reported.
Therefore, in order to provide a solution for wavelength
conversion onboard and low spectrum efficiency, based on
the flexible bandwidth switching for a space information
network in our previous work [10], we propose a novel
UDWDM transmission and wavelength conversion scheme
on basis of the OFC for satellite applications in this paper.
Through the cooperation of OFC and WSS, all-optical
wavelength conversion and flexible bandwidth allocation are
implemented experimentally. The BER of the baseband and
optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OOFDM)
data after conversion is tested. The experimental results
indicate the wavelength conversion and bandwidth allocation
abilities of the system and demonstrate the feasibility of its
application on optical satellite networks.
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the all-optical wavelength conversion scheme based on OFC. MZM: Mach-Zehnder modulator, RLO: reconfigurable local
oscillator, OFC: optical frequency comb, WSS: wavelength selective switch, OWC: optical wireless channel, PD: photodiode, BPF: bandpass filter
II. STRUCTURE OF UDWDM AND PRINCIPLE OF
WAVELENGTH CONVERSION BASED ON OFC
The schematic diagram of the UDWDM satellite node
structure and the all-optical wavelength conversion scheme
based on OFC is shown in Fig. 1.
In Fig. 1, the inter-satellite link communication in the
optical satellite networks is taken as an example to illustrate
the principle of the proposed UDWDM transmission and
wavelength conversion scheme. The relay satellite GEO1
receives data transmitted from multiple LEO satellites and
sends different services to the corresponding satellite of the
next-hop node. Assume that the working wavelength of the
Therefore, the GEO satellite node should convert the
operational wavelength to the idle frequency in the current
networks. Otherwise, the services will not be transmitted to
the next node, which increases the network blocking
probability.
In this scheme, we intend to add OFC and WSS to the
system and make them mutually match to achieve the all-
optical wavelength conversion and flexible bandwidth
allocation, thereby solving the blocking problem and
improving the connectivity of the networks. Point A of Fig. 1
represents the received OFDM data from the LEO1 satellite,
and the center frequency of the optical carrier is fc. The OFC
with N comb lines is generated by the GEO1 OFC unit, and
each comb line acts as a subcarrier to copy the received
data carried by the optical signal to N comb lines. The
spacing between the adjacent OFC comb lines is fLO. Hence,
the center frequency of each comb line is fc n fLO (n is a
positive integer), and its spectrum diagram is shown as point
B of Fig. 1. When the OFC does not carry the OFDM data,
the spectrum diagram is shown as point B of Fig. 1. Since
the data carried by the OFC will be selected and filtered by
the backend WSS, the comb line spacing should be set as
fLO = k × fSLICE (k is a positive integer)，where fSLICE is the
768
minimum frequency slot width of the WSS. The OFC is
controlled by the reconfigurable local oscillator (RLO),
whose frequency, amplitude and phase can be reconfigured
to control the OFC spacing and the comb-line number.
WSS is completely reconfigurable by allocating channel
spacing and bandwidth dynamically without any blocking. In
the scheme, the idle SLICE selection and the channel
allocation are controlled by the software-defined WSS in
terms of the spectrum occupancy of the satellite networks.
As shown in point C of Fig. 1, it is assumed that two
frequency slots fc 2 fLO and fc fLO are unoccupied in
the optical satellite networks, and then the WSS is controlled
to select the available frequency slots. The corresponding
two comb lines are filtered out, which is sent to the next hop
node in the satellite networks. Consequently, by combining
the functions of data multiplication of OFC and frequency
slot selection of WSS, the GEO1 relay node can implement
all-optical wavelength conversion, thereby reducing the
network blocking probability. In addition, WSS can also
switch between point-to-point (P2P) and point-to-multipoint
(P2MP) modes by controlling the number of comb lines in
accordance with the service demand. Meanwhile, the power
difference of each channel can be equalized to compensate
the spectral ripple and improve the comb line flatness by
controlling the built-in attenuator of WSS.
The data of each channel is multiplexed with a grid of
WSS minimum frequency slot width. Since the SLICE width
of WSS (12.5 GHz typically) is much smaller than the
channel spacing of traditional WDM, the spectrum efficiency
of the UDWDM scheme is higher than that of the traditional
scheme. The multiplexed optical signal is transmitted to the
GEO / LEO node through free space and the optical signal of
the corresponding frequency slot, whose center frequency is
fc fLO, is filtered out by WSS or optical filter. Finally the
original OFDM data is obtained through the photodetector
and the electrical filter.
 III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS FOR THE OOFDM
TRANSMISSION AND WAVELENGTH CONVERSION SYSTEM
Based on the proposed UDWDM structure and
wavelength conversion scheme of optical satellite networks,
an experimental system is established to verify the flexible
bandwidth allocation, OOFDM transmission and wavelength
conversion of the relay nodes. The structure diagram of the
experimental system is shown in Fig. 2 (a), and the
photograph of the test apparatus is shown in Fig. 2 (b).
First, the ability of WSS frequency slot selection and
dynamic bandwidth allocation is verified by experimental
validation. The two 1×4-WSSs used in the experiment are
Finisar EWP-AA series with a minimum SLICE width of
12.5 GHz. The laser output is send to the COM port of the
WSS directly and the channel width switching is controlled
by the personal computer (PC). The number of the SLICEs is
set from 1 to 4 (Slice Number: 143 ~ 146), whose
corresponding frequency slot widths are 12.5 GHz, 25 GHz,
37.5 GHz and 50 GHz, respectively. The output spectrum of
the WSS measured by an optical spectrum analyzer (Anritsu
MS9740A) is shown in Fig. 3. The results indicate that by
adjusting the center frequency and frequency slot width of
the WSS output channel, the comb lines allowed to pass
through the WSS can be selected and the number of comb
lines can be controlled.
(a)
(b)
Figure 2. Structural diagram and photograph of the OOFDM transmission
and wavelength conversion experiment. (a) Structural diagram of the
experimental system. (b) Experimental test site photo. PRBS: pseudo-
random binary sequence, AWG: arbitrary waveform generator, EPS:
electric phase shifter, EA: electric amplifier, DD-MZM: dual-drive Mach-
Zehnder modulator, RLO: reconfigurable local oscillator, OFC: optical
frequency comb, EDFA: Erbium-doped fiber amplifier, VOA: variable
optical attenuator, WSS: wavelength selective switch, PD: photodiode, BPF:
bandpass filter, CDR: clock and date recovery module, RTO: real-time
oscilloscope
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Subsequently, the experiment is performed on the
flatness of the output comb lines from the OFC generation
unit. In the experiment, the OFC is generated based on DD-
MZM (Photline MZDD-LN-20), which is obtained by
entering LO signals with different frequencies to two arms of
the DD-MZM. In order to match the WSS frequency slot
width, the space between the adjacent OFC lines is set as
12.5 GHz. By configuring the parameters of the
reconfigurable LO source (DS SG6000L), the frequencies of
output signals from the doubled-frequency and fourfold-
frequency ports are fLO = 12.5 GHz and 2 fLO = 25 GHz,
respectively. Furthermore, the electric phase shifter (EPS)
circuit is employed to adjust the phase differences between
two arms of the DD-MZM. When its input signal voltages of
the two arms are set as 3.65 V and 1.35 V and the DC bias
voltage is set as 0.75 V, the OFC spectrum of the DD-MZM
output port is shown in Fig. 4. In our experimental system,
the center wavelength of the laser is 1552.52 nm and the
number of the OFC comb lines is 5 with 12.5 GHz spacing
between adjacent lines. The flatness of the OFC is less than
1.21 dB and the center wavelength is consistent with Slice
143 of the WSS.
Figure 3. Spectra of the WSS output with different frequency slot widths.
Figure 4. Spectra of the OFC signal
Finally, the OOFDM transmission and all-optical
wavelength conversion system is conducted experimentally.
The BERT (Anritsu MP1800A) generates 1 Gbps baseband
data with the pattern of 231 1 PRBS, which is modulated to
the optical domain by the MZM (Photline MXAN-LN-10).
Afterwards, the optical signal passes through the OFC
generation unit that is configured with appropriate
parameters. The generated OFC is shown by the blue curve
in Fig. 5. If it is hypothesized that the center wavelength of
1552.52 nm is already occupied in the networks, the second
comb line whose center wavelength is 1552.42 nm, is
selected by WSS and output from the com port, thereby
realizing the function of all-optical wavelength conversion.
The wavelength range configured by WSS is shown by the
red curve in Fig. 5.
At the receiving end, the optical signal is filtered by WSS,
amplified by EDFA and converted to the electrical signal by
the photodetector (Finisar XPDV2120). After amplified and
filtered, the baseband data is delivered to the data and clock
recovery (CDR) circuit. The waveform of the recovered data
is observed by the oscilloscope, and then the bit-error rate is
tested by the BERT. By changing the frequency slot
controlled by WSS, the data carried by the five comb lines is
tested separately. The BER curve and the eye diagram are
shown in Fig. 6 (only the eye diagram of the 1552.52 nm
wavelength is given in Fig. 6 for brevity). In addition, if the
laser link needs to convey the IF or RF signal, the input data
can be mixed with the LO of the appropriate frequency to
obtain the corresponding band (S/C/Ku/Ka) signal, as shown
in the dotted line in Fig. 2 (a).
Figure 5. Spectra of the OFC and wavelength range of the configured
WSS Slice
Figure 6. BER curve and eye diagram (Comb 1 ~ Comb 5)
770
After the test of baseband pattern, the analog OFDM
signal is generated with an arbitrary waveform generator
(AWG Tektronix AFG3101). Each one of the OFDM
symbols is arranged to have Hermitian symmetry in order to
get a real-valued baseband OFDM signal and output from the
AWG port. The data is collected by the oscilloscope for BER
testing. The parameters of the generated OFDM data are
shown in Table I. The result shows that the BER is lower
than the threshold 3.8 × 10-3 of FEC coding, suggesting that
the system can realize the transmission of the OOFDM data.
TABLE I. OFDM SIGNAL PARAMETERS
Property Value Units
IFFT/FFT size 1250 n/a
Subcarriers 1000 n/a
Modulation 4-QAM n/a
Bandwidth 20 MHz
Cyclic prefix 8 %
Spacing of Subcarriers 20 kHz
IV. CONCLUSION
An UDWDM transmission and wavelength conversion
scheme for flexible-bandwidth optical satellite networks
based on the OFC is proposed and its operational principle
and implementation technique of wavelength conversion is
analyzed and the experimental test apparatus is established in
this paper. The experiment demonstrates that the relay node
is able to convert wavelength and allocate bandwidth
flexibility. The BER of the baseband data and the generated
OOFDM data after conversion is tested. The experimental
results indicate that the node can generate OFC with the
flatness less than 1.21 dB, and WSS can realize channel
switching with a minimum slot width of 12.5 GHz. When the
baseband data rate is 1 Gbps, the BER is less than 10-9 after
UDWDM transmission and wavelength conversion, and the
BER of the generated OFDM data after transmission is less
than the threshold of FEC (3.8×10-3). The proposed relay
node applied to the flexible-bandwidth optical satellite
networks has capabilities of wavelength conversion and
dynamic allocation, and advantages of high spectrum
efficiency, low load power consumption and flexible
configuration.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported in part by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant 61871418,
China.
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