Advanced DSP for Coherent Optical Fiber Communication

In this paper, we provide an overview of recent progress on advanced digital signal processing (DSP) techniques for high-capacity long-haul coherent optical fiber transmission systems. Not only the linear impairments existing in optical transmission links need to be compensated, but also, the nonlinear impairments require proper algorithms for mitigation because they become major limiting factors for long-haul large-capacity optical transmission systems. Besides the time domain equalization (TDE), the frequency domain equalization (FDE) DSP also provides a similar performance, with a much-reduced computational complexity. Advanced DSP also plays an important role for the realization of space division multiplexing (SDM). SDM techniques have been developed recently to enhance the system capacity by at least one order of magnitude. Some impressive results have been reported and have outperformed the nonlinear Shannon limit of the single-mode fiber (SMF). SDM introduces the space dimension to the optical fiber communication. The few-mode fiber (FMF) and multi-core fiber (MCF) have been manufactured for novel multiplexing techniques such as mode-division multiplexing (MDM) and multi-core multiplexing (MCM). Each mode or core can be considered as an independent degree of freedom, but unfortunately, signals will suffer serious coupling during the propagation. Multi-input–multi-output (MIMO) DSP can equalize the signal coupling and makes SDM transmission feasible. The machine learning (ML) technique has attracted worldwide attention and has been explored for advanced DSP. In this paper, we firstly introduce the principle and scheme of coherent detection to explain why the DSP techniques can compensate for transmission impairments. Then corresponding technologies related to the DSP, such as nonlinearity compensation, FDE, SDM and ML will be discussed. Relevant techniques will be analyzed, and representational results and experimental verifications will be demonstrated. In the end, a brief conclusion and perspective will be provided.