A novel bidirectional half-duplex fronthaul system using MMW/RoF and analog network coding

A novel bidirectional half-duplex fiber-wireless fronthaul system is proposed in this paper. Bidirectional relaying transmission is deployed in both optical fiber and wireless link thanks to millimeter-wave radio over fiber (MMW/RoF) and analog network coding (ANC) techniques. The architecture of the proposed fronthaul system is simplified significantly since it requires only an optical fiber with a single wavelength and a wireless link with a single MMW frequency. The detailed architectures of the subsystems such as the central station, the remote antenna unit, and the remote radio head are also designed. Mathematical expressions for the performance analysis of the proposed fronthaul system are derived considering the effects of various physical layer impairments. The numerical results demonstrate not only the feasibility of our proposed system but also the gain in terms of throughput of ANC-based relaying compared to conventional and digital network coding (DNC)-based relaying.