학술논문

Integrated Microwave Photonics Coherent Processor for Massive-MIMO Systems in Wireless Communications
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics IEEE J. Select. Topics Quantum Electron. Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of. 29(6: Photonic Signal Processing):1-12 Jan, 2023
Subject
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Photonics and Electrooptics
Optical filters
Adaptive optics
Optical modulation
RF signals
Optical signal processing
Radio frequency
Microwave filters
Coherent photonic processor
integrated microwave photonics
Mach Zehnder interferometers
massive- MIMO
photonic MIMO
wireless communications
Language
ISSN
1077-260X
1558-4542
Abstract
Massive-MIMO systems can achieve high capacities and data rates by increasing the number of operational antennas in the base station. As more antenna elements are introduced, the complexity of the signal processing operations increases accordingly and current electronic processors struggle to reach those requirements. To overcome these hurdles, we propose a novel theory to process the RF signals in the optical domain. We experimentally demonstrate the capabilities of theory using a non-integrated Dual Parallel Modulator as a 2×2 optical matrix multiplier, recovering satisfactorily previously mixed RF signals modulated following the standards in 5G communications. Finally, we propose an integrated photonic architecture based on a core of Mach Zehnder Interferometers to physically process the information. Together with the optical core, we proposed the integration of RF modulators, microwave photonic filters and high-speed photodetectors. We present simulations on the expected performance of the circuit and analyze the impact of fabrication errors.