Comparison of DSP schemes with frequency domain equalization for passive optical networks

In recent years, digital signal processing (DSP) has been widely investigated for the applications in future next generation passive optical networks (PONs). In this paper, we compare four transmission technologies based on DSP with frequency domain equalization (FDE) for PON transmission with double-side band (DSB) intensity modulation and direct detection. These schemes include orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), single-carrier frequency domain equalization (SCFDE), discrete Fourier transform spread orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DFT-S-OFDM) and interleaved frequency division multiplexing (IFDM). We analyze their computational complexity and flexibility in PON applications, and compare their transmission performance by experiments. Based on above work, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a hybrid DSP-enhanced PON architecture with downstream OFDM modulation and upstream SCFDE modulation.