Bidirectional Radio Over Fiber with Millimeter Wave to Support 5G Fronthaul Network

The cellular network continues to grow due to the increasing needs of users. Recently, the 5G network has offered not only higher capacity mobile broadband known as Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) but also Massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC) and Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communication (uRLLC). These promising applications require high data transfer, especially in fronthaul networks, to support radio access to users. The millimeter wave-based bidirectional Radio over Fiber (RoF) technology is prospective for 5G fronthaul due to its reliable link performance. However, dispersion has become an issue in obtaining an optimum performance in desired distances. This research designs a bidirectional radio over fiber system and studies a dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) optimization. The system is analyzed with Bit Error Rate (BER) and Q Factor parameters by varying distances and bit rates. The bidirectional Radio over Fiber system achieves the standard at 1-2 km with a peak bit rate of 16 Gbps for the downstream scheme, while the upstream scheme achieves the standard at 1-4 km with a peak bit rate of 16 Gbps. Moreover, the bidirectional Radio over Fiber system with DCF shows a 150% increase in signal quality for the downstream scheme and a 140% increase for the upstream scheme by meeting the standards at 1-15 km with a peak bit rate of 16 Gbps.