Overview on recent EU projects on POF and home networks

The ALPHA and POF-PLUS projects

Speaker: Roberto GaudinoPolitecnico di Torino, Italy

Workshop: From FTTH to FITH – Complementary and Convergent In-Building Networks

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Presentation outline

The two EU projects POF-PLUS and ALPHA

The main outcomes and lessons learned from the two projects Choices on POF types 1 Gigabit/s over 50 meters: Multi-Gigabit over 50 meters: proof-of-concept “Off the beaten tracks” Radio over fiber over POF Bidirectional over POF

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The two EU projects POF-PLUS and ALPHA at a glance

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POF-PLUS

IST-FP7 STREP project n. 224521

POF-PLUS means “Plastic Optical Fibre for Pervasive Low-cost Ultra-high capacity Systems”

Duration: from May 2008 to April 2011 (3 years) Total Cost: € 3.6M EC Contribution: € 2.6M

POF-PLUS shall develop a technology based on Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) to allow delivery of Gbit/s links over

short distances for home networking and data center applications

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POF-PLUS

Strictly focused on physical-layer for 1 Gigabit/s (and more) over POF Research mostly focused on: Optoelectronic components: RC-LED vs. Lasers vs. VCSELs Fibers: SI-POF vs. MC-POF vs. GI-POF PHY layer implementation: Modulation formats Equalization structures Coding/Framing

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ALPHA IST-FP7 IP project

ALPHA means “Architectures for fLexible Photonic Home and Access networks” Duration: Jan 1, 2008 – Dec 31, 2010 Total Cost: €16.5 m EC Contribution: €11.2 m

The ALPHA consortium, consisting of European telecom operators, system vendors, research institutes and

universities, addresses the challenges of building the future access and in-building networks with support for the

transport of 2G/3G/B3G -based services.

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ALPHA

NOT only POF… The general focus is the integration of Access, Home

and In-Building networks

The activity on POF constitutes anyway a significant part of the project (approx. 15-20%)

Both projects are today close to their conclusion (March-April 2011) so that we can start talking about “Lessons Learned”

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Where did we start from?

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Where did we start from?

Situation at the beginning of the two projects (Q1-2008)

Commercial products on POF for 100 Mbit/s were available from different vendors Some European Telcos were testing POF systems for home

networking in field trials During 2008, the first “POF kits” were proposed

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Where did we start from?

The actual question was: could POF reliably support more than 100 Mbit/s transmission over approx. 50 meters? Talking about Ethernet, the target is clearly 1 Gbit/s

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Lessons Learned

Choices on POF types

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The envisioned scenario for POF

Both projects focused mostly on the residential in-building scenario for the use of POF

Both projects (and some ongoing standardization activities in ETSI and VDE-DKE) agree that for home networking application the “wish-list” is:

At least 50 meter reach 1 Gbit/s (or more)

This is seen as the natural upgrade to today commercial 100 Mbit/s POF transceivers

Thick fibers (1mm preferred) for ease of installation

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Choices on POF types

TODAY: stick with the only standardized, mass produced POF, i.e., the PMMA, 1mm, step-index POF (IEC A4a.2)

TOMORROW: very good results on PMMA multi-core POF (MC-POF) Much better bending resilience Slightly better bandwidth

If more than 1 Gbit/s is required GI-POF required, but still stick with large

diameter (1 mm) PMMA 1mm GI-POF preferred Not yet standardized Significant bending problems

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1 Gbit/s over 50 meter SI-POF

DONE!

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LUCEAT prototype (ALPHA project)

Pre-engineered prototype that reaches the targets (1 Gbit/s over 50 meters SI-POF)

Based on: On-Off modulation of red edge-emitting laser Commercial equalizer chipset at receiver

A Si-Photodiode and TIAB AGC

C Channel Equalizer

D Light source Driver

E Light Source

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Eye diagram transmitted (up) and received (down) after 50m of POF

Laboratory results

Pluggable solution & Compact dimensions:

30x30mm

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The media converter has been tested with the RFC2544 tests giving full

throughput and zero packet loss even at 50m

RFC2544 Test Set-up e Throughput results

64 192 320 448 576 704 832 960 1088 1216 1344 14720

200000

400000

600000

800000

1000000

1200000

1400000

1600000

1 Gbps Throughput test result w/ 50m of SI-POF

Packet size [bytes]

Rate

[pkt

/sec

]

Pre-industrialized media-converter test

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ISMB prototype (POF-PLUS project)

Use of RC-LED rather than edge-emitting laser Potentially even less expensive, easier packaging

But smaller output power and smaller bandwidth

Plugless connectors possible (for instance, Firecomms Optolock)

A completely new PHY was required, prototyped on an FPGA On-Off modulation Decision feedback equalization (DFE) FEC coding (simple Reed-Solomon coding)

The prototype currently gives 6 dB of optical margin at 50 meters, real time Gigabit Ethernet traffic

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ISMB prototype (POF-PLUS project)

Internal technical fair at Orange-France Telecom, Paris, 2010 December 7-9

Succesfully demonstrated on real time Gigabit Ethernet traffic

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BER pre- and post- FEC with real time Gigabit Ethernet traffic

-18 -16 -14 -12 -1010

-14

10-12

10-10

10-8

10-6

10-4

10-2

BER

Received Optical Power [dBm]

BER before FECBER after FEC

Measurement performed at “bit” level through internal monitoring features in the receiver PHY

6.5 dB of power margin

Received optical power without extra attenuation -9.5 dBm

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More than 1 Gbit/s over 50 meter SI-POF

First proof-of-concepts

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More than 1 Gbit/s? Radio-over-fiber?

Several research groups in the two projects are considering transmitting more than 1 Gbit/s over POF

Forget SI-POF and LED (available bandwidth is too limited): Optical Sources: lasers (edge-emitting or VCSEL) Fiber types: MC-POF or GI-POF

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TUE results in ALPHAPOFAC results in POF-PLUS

Several experiments performed achieving more than 5 Gbit/s Key points: Lasers Advanced modulation formats (DMT/OFDM) Optimized receivers

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Example: TUE recent resutlts

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10 20 30 40 505

5.5

6

6.5

7

7.5

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POF length (m)

Bit

Rat

e (G

b/s)

POF length Data Rate BER

10 m 7.6 Gb/s 6.7 E-4

20 m 7.2 Gb/s 6.3 E-4

35 m 6.2 Gb/s 8.8 E-4

50 m 5.3 Gb/s 8.5 E-4

0 50 100 150 200 25010-4

10-3

10-2

Subcarrier number

BER

5.3 Gb/s gross bit rate (4.85 Gb/s net) achieved for BER < 10-3

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POF Ribbon for Parallel Transmission(POF-PLUS)

0.55 mm

2.24 mm

Prospect for 10 Gbit/s (4x2.5 Gbit/s) on a very thin cable

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“Off the beaten tracks”

Radio over fiber over POFBidirectional over POF

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TUE experiments in Radio-over-fiber over POF

(POF-PLUS)

UWB Tx data: WiMedia MB-OFDM signal, third band (4.2 – 4.7 GHz)

• Light source: VCSEL at 650 nm (red)• Detector: PIN at visible light• POF: 50 m PMMA Graded-Index

System bandwidth: ~ 800MHz

Proposed solution:1) UWB RF signal generation, by commercial UWB transceiver2) Down-convert to IF band, via LO at 4.1 GHz3) transport over POF 4) photo-detecting5) Up-convert to original RF band, by offline software process

UWB Tx

4.1 GHz

VCSEL PIN

TIA667 nm

PMMA GI -POF

Software up -conversion and Analysis

TFC 7

DC

0 1 2

-20

Frequency (GHz)Elec

trica

l pow

er (d

B)

-30-40

-10

UWB Tx

UWB Tx

4.1 GHz

VCSELVCSEL PINPIN

TIATIA667 nm

PMMA GI -POF

Software up -conversion and Analysis

Software up -conversion and Analysis

TFC 7

DC

0 1 2

-20

Frequency (GHz)Elec

trica

l pow

er (d

B)

-30-40

-10

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POLITO bidirectional transmission over POF(ALPHA project)

POLITO succesfully demonstrated Gigabit Ethernet transmission over a single POF used for both directions over 50 meters with 6 dB of optical margin Over 75 meters with 2 dB of optical

TRANSCEIVER #1

POF

RX1

TX2

TRANSCEIVER #2

RX2

TX1

4.4 mm

2.2 mm“traditional” duplex

POF cable“simplex

POF cable

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For further information

http://www.ict-pof-plus.eu/info@ict-pof-plus.eu

To contact the coordinatorProf. Roberto Gaudino, gaudino@polito.it

www.ict-alpha.eu

To contact the coordinatorDr. Mikhail Popov, mikhail.popov@acreo.se