Performance comparison between digital back propagation (DBP) and pilot-aided method for fiber nonlinearity compensation in different fiber links

We numerically investigate and compare the performance of fiber nonlinearity compensation using digital back propagation (DBP) method and pilot-aided method in coherent optical transmission systems using different fiber links. Simulations for wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) 112 Gb/s polarization division multiplexed quadrature phase shift keying (PDM-QPSK) systems with dispersion unmanaged (no DM) and dispersion managed (DM) fiber links are implemented. System Q-factor and maximum transmission distance at bit error rate (BER) of 3.8 ÿ 10⿿3 are calculated for performance comparison. The results show that, for system with no DM fiber link, DBP method outperforms pilot-aided method, because DBP method has better performance for intra-channel fiber nonlinearity compensation. However, for system with DM fiber link where inter-channel fiber nonlinearity plays an important role, pilot-aided method performs better than DBP method, because of its ability for inter-channel fiber nonlinearity compensation.