Exploiting the Nonlinear Fiber-Optical Channel

Project Information

ENFOC

Grant agreement ID: 704790

DOI 10.3030/704790

Project terminated on 12 October 2016

EC signature date 22 February 2016

Start date 1 March 2016

End date 28 February 2018

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost € 171 460,80

EU contribution € 171 460,80

Coordinated by

FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG EV
Germany

Objective

The demand for bandwidth in optical fiber communication systems is increasing at a steady rate. In order to keep up with the demand, techniques to overcome the limit determined by the nonlinear nature of optical fiber transmission have attracted a lot of research attention.
Recently, transmission using the nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT) was proposed as a promising technique to take advantage of fiber nonlinearities for data transmission. The technique uses signal states which are invariant to the fiber optical channel in certain system configurations. However, many challenges and open questions remain concerning NFT transmission in particular regarding suitable signal processing algorithms and coding strategies for such systems. It is currently unknown how NFT transmission performs with practical coded modulation and detection schemes and how its computational complexity and practical feasibility compares to other options for nonlinearity mitigation such as digital back-propagation. Furthermore, the impact of inter-channel nonlinearities and co-propagating wavelength channels has not yet been investigated. The only experimental demonstrations to date consider single-channel transmission.
The project aims to address the aforementioned questions by first investigating coded modulation schemes for nonlinear channels based on existing commercial architectures. One of the key aspects is to gain insight in the signal statistics for the nonlinear channel and learn how to utilize this information for increased signal processing and decoding performance. Based on these results, the applicability and performance of coded modulation concepts for NFT transmission will be quantified for practical system scenarios. Furthermore, the impact of co-propagating WDM channels on coded NFT transmission will be studied and WDM NFT transmission demonstrated. Together with our industrial partners the practical feasibility of these concepts is evaluated.

Fields of science

• engineering and technology › materials engineering › fibers
• engineering and technology › electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering › electronic engineering › signal processing
• natural sciences › physical sciences › optics › fibre optics

Keywords

• optical communication
• wavelength division multiplexing
• coded modulation
• information theory
• Kerr effect
• fiber nonlinearity
• digital signal processing

Programme(s)

• H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme
• H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility

Topic(s)

• MSCA-IF-2015-EF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF)

Call for proposal

H2020-MSCA-IF-2015

Funding Scheme

MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

Coordinator

FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG EV

• Net EU contribution: € 171 460,80
• Address: Hansastrasse 27c ; 80686 Munchen ; Germany
• Region: Bayern › Oberbayern › München, Kreisfreie Stadt
• Activity type: Research Organisations
• Other funding: € 0,00