CAREER: Enabling Technologies for Beyond 1 Tb/s per Wavelength Optical Transport

今天的光子基础设施的基础是几十年前建立的，逐渐从全球骨干网延伸到接入网络甚至更远的地方。最近的研究表明，北美的每个家庭应该至少通过100Mb/S连接，这是上个世纪的技术无法容纳的。目前，100 Gb/S以太网正在标准化中，业内专家表示，到2012年至2013年，1 TB/S以太网应该会实现标准化。迁移到更高的传输速率随之而来的是某些挑战，例如由于不同的线性和非线性信道损伤以及增加的安装成本导致的信号质量下降。光子学网络的局限性还源于基础设施的异构性以及不同边界和接口的相应瓶颈。这项多学科研究拨款研究不同的方法，以克服异质光网络的限制，实现串行1 TB/S光传输，同时使用运行速度较低的组件。在该方法中，以统一的方式执行调制、编码和多路复用，从而有效地以低得多的符号速率完成传输、信号处理、检测和解码。在这些较低的速率下，处理非线性和线性影响是可控的，同时聚合数据速率保持在1 TB/S或更高。这笔拨款的主要研究目标可概括如下：(I)开发不同的编码调制方案，采用单载波和多载波，以实现每波长1 TB/S的光传输，并同时缓解各种类型的光链路上的信道损伤；(Ii)编码调制方案的硬件FPGA/ASIC实现；以及(Iii)通过概念验证实现研究来验证所建议的方法。

Today's photonic infrastructure, whose foundations were established several decades ago, gradually extends from global backbone to access networks and beyond. Recent studies indicate that each household in North America should be connected by at least 100 Mb/s, which cannot be accommodated by the last century's technology. The 100 Gb/s Ethernet is currently under standardization, and according to industry experts 1 Tb/s Ethernet should be standardized by the year 2012-2013. Migrating to higher transmission rates comes along with certain challenges such as degradation in the signal quality due to different linear and nonlinear channel impairments and increased installation costs. The limitations of photonics-enabled networks also result from the heterogeneity of the infrastructure and consequential bottlenecks at different boundaries and interfaces. This multidisciplinary research grant studies different approaches to overcome the limitations of heterogeneous optical networks and enable serial 1 Tb/s optical transport, while employing the components operating at lower speeds. In this approach, modulation, coding and multiplexing are performed in a unified fashion so that, effectively, the transmission, signal processing, detection and decoding are done at much lower symbol rates. At these lower rates, dealing with nonlinear and linear effects is manageable while the aggregate data rate is maintained at 1 Tb/s and above. The primary research objectives of this grant can be summarized as follows: (i) development of different coded modulation schemes, employing both single-carrier and multicarrier, to enable 1 Tb/s per wavelength optical transport and for simultaneous mitigation of channel impairments over various types of optical links; (ii) hardware FPGA/ASIC implementation of coded modulation schemes; and (iii) validation of the proposed methodology through proof-of-concept implementation studies.