Millimeter-wave hybrid OFDM-MDM radio over free space optical transceiver for 5G services in desert environment

Abstract

We propose a novel design of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-mode division multiplexing (OFDM-MDM) based radio over free space optical (RoFSO) transceiver under the dust effect. Two separate 20 Gbps-40 GHz 4-QAM data bearing optical beams are transported over two distinctive Hermite-Gaussian modes; HG00 and HG01, of a single-frequency laser to realize a single-channel 40 Gbps-80 GHz 5G communication link. The link performance and availability are investigated under the impact of clear climate and under varied dust conditions, including very light dust, light dust, moderate dust, and dense dust using signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and total power as the key evaluation parameters. Further, we have determined the maximum reachable link distance within acceptable performance criteria, i.e., SNR 20 dB for each desert weather conditions. A higher data rate with tolerable SNR and power requirements for 5G applications has been verified.

Keywords

• RoFSO
• MDM
• QAM
• Optical OFDM
• Spatial diversity
• Next-generation optical networks