PhD Defense of Hamza HALLAK ELWAN

This thesis is for the development of future devices, systems and networks supporting the 5th Generation (5G) high-speed wireless internet. The demand for very high bit rate requires a sufficient large bandwidth, and therefore Millimeter-Wave (mm-wave) frequency band has a lot of interest. Several number of technologies will need to converge, co-exist and interoperate, and most importantly, cooperate, if this vision is to be efficiently and cost-effectively realized.
The main concept within this next 5G is the integration of optical fiber networks and radio networks through Radio-over-Fiber (RoF) technology at mm-wave frequencies, to provide high-bandwidth front/backhaul services and enable scalable and manageable networks without a highly complex interface structure and multiple overlaid protocols.
In this thesis, the mm-wave RoF communication systems are theoretically studied and experimentally demonstrated to investigate the system impairments.
The work presented in this thesis is focused on optical noise represented by phase and intensity noise induced by optical source and chromatic dispersion introduced by optical fiber. The optical noise is analyzed and measured for different optical generation techniques. Two different down-conversion stages, mixer and envelope detector, are applied for signal processing and to decorrelate phase and intensity noise. We would like to highlight that this study and the model can be applicable to any kind of optical heterodyne generation system and any frequency range. The correlation among optical modes in optical frequency comb is examined to show the impact of chromatic dispersion. This thesis also exhibits the mm-wave power distribution over fiber span and how the chromatic dispersion effect on the RoF network is modified by varying dispersion parameters. Then, this thesis demonstrates how the optical phase decorrelation induced by chromatic dispersion results in mode partition noise at mm-wave RoF communication networks.
When transmitting some types of data over the system, the results demonstrate the impact of optical noise and chromatic dispersion on the signal quality. The simulation results are presented and are in very good agreement with experimental results. The error vector magnitude through online process shows the impact of the system impairments on the system performance. The data rate and system evolution are compliance with communication standards at mm-wave.