(IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 47

Vol. 2, No. 7, July 2010

Effects of Nonlinear Phenomena in Performance of

Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)
Network for Fiber to the Home Applications
S.Sugumaran1, Lakshmi Narayana K2, Dr.S.K.Sudheer3, Dr. P.Arulmozhi varman4
1
Research Scholar, School of Electronics Engineering, VIT University, Vellore.
ssugumaran1976@gmail.com
2
M.Tech.Student, School of Electronics Engineering, VIT University, Vellore.
3
Professor, School of Electronics Engineering, VIT University, Vellore.
4
Professor, School of Electronics Engineering, VIT University, Vellore.

nonlinear effects in fiber, the nonflat gain spectrum of

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyze the nonlinear
impairments that limit the performance of wavelength division Erbium doped fiber amplifiers, and various polarization-
multiplexing network for fiber to the home applications. The related effects. There are several types of nonlinear effects
nonlinear phenomena in optical fiber consists carrier induced that occur in optical fiber. Within those the dominant effects
phase modulation, fourwave mixing (FWM), stimulated Raman are fourwave mixing (FWM) and stimulated Raman
scattering (SRS), stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). Out of scattering (SRS) [3-6]. In this paper we analyzed the effects
these fourwave mixing, stimulated Raman scattering and that are affecting in long-haul optical transmission system.
amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) are dominant for long- The analysis consists of a modeled node that is
haul commercial applications. These effects decay the present in the fiber to the home wavelength division
performance of the system which is present in the network. In network (FTTH-WDM) which performance is measured as
this analysis we modeled a node that is present in wavelength throughput by using two most preferable reservation
division multiplexed network for fiber to the home (FTTH)
protocols those are helpful while establishing lightpath
applications. This analysis proves that by decreasing the cross-
talk, noise generated by the effects system performance
between source and destination. To establish and tear down
improved and also shows the superiority of the destination lightpaths in network, we need to make use of path
initiated reservation protocol from the other reservation reservation protocols, which ensure that the path from
protocols. source to destination is reserved before the connection is
used.
Keywords: ASE, fiber to the home (FTTH), fourwave mixing,
There are many protocols available but most
Optical signal to noise ratio, stimulated Brillouin scattering,
stimulated Raman scattering , wavelength division multiplexing..
commonly used in this modeling. They are source initiated
reservation protocol (SIR), destination initiated reservation
protocol (DIR) [5-7]. These are acknowledgement based
protocols reserving virtual channels. Under forward
1. Introduction reservation, the virtual channels are locked by a control
message that travels to the destination node but for the
The major milestone in the evolution of optical
backward reservation, a control message travels to the
fiber transmission system was development of erbium-doped
destination to probe the path, and then virtual channels that
fiber amplifiers (EDFA). Erbium doped fiber amplifiers
are found to be available are locked by another control
spurred the development of a completely new generation of
message, which travels from the destination node to the
systems. A major advantage of these amplifiers is that they
source node. The modeled network node architecture is
are capable of amplifying signals at many wavelengths
shown in fig. 1., channel (optical fiber) impairments
simultaneously. Another way of increasing the system
stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) modifies the original
capacity is keeping the bit rate same and using more than
optical signal, fourwave mixing generates the newer
one wavelength; that is, use wavelength division
wavelengths which are present in original signal
multiplexing (WDM).
transmission wavelength range, the noise effects from the
Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and Erbium
amplifiers (regenerators) like amplified spontaneous noise
doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) dramatically brought down
(ASE) are considered while modeling node performance [9-
the cost of long-haul transmission systems and increased
14].
their capacity [1-4]. The next logical invention was enabled
the dispersion compensated systems to achieve distances of
The performance evolution (node throughput)
several thousands of kilometers between regenerators at
depends upon channel capacity, which is limited by channel
higher bit rates as 10Gb/s per channel.
impairments (nonlinearities) by affecting optical signal-to-
At the same time, several impairments other than
noise ratio (OSNR) [12-16]. This modeling analysis is done
dispersion were second-or third-order effects earlier began
to emerge as first-order effects. Today, this list includes
48
mathematically under suitable assumptions. It also provides
which protocol is suitable for higher data rate application.
Figure 1. Fiber to the home system architecture
2. Wavelength division multiplexing
In real systems, even a single channel will probably
be a combination of many lower-speed signals, since very
few individual applications today utilizes the bandwidth.
This lower-speed signal multiplexed together in time to
form a higher-speed signal [17-19]. To exploit more of
fibers THz bandwidth, we seek solution that complement or
replace time division multiplexing (TDM). One obvious
choice is WDM, in which several baseband-modulated
channels are transmitted along a single fiber but with each
channel located at different wavelength. Each of N different-
wavelength lasers are operating at the slower Gb/s speeds
provides a significant capacity enhancement. The WDM
channels are separated in wavelength to avoid crosstalk
when they are multiplexed/de-multiplexed by a non-ideal
optical filter. WDM allows us to use much of the available
fiber bandwidth. Data is transmitted digitally over optical
fiber from the hub, or central office, to fiber-terminating
nodes called optical network units (ONUs). These ONU’s
were like system nodes which were present at the
subscribers end. Depending on how close the fiber gets to an
individual subscriber, different terms are employed to
describe it. In the optimistic scenario, fiber would go to each
home, in which case this architecture is called fiber to the
home (FTTH).
3. Nonlinear optical phenomena affecting the
performance of network
Individual nonlinear effects on fiber to the home
system performance are discussed below:
3.1 Effect of stimulated Raman scattering
SRS is one of the significant nonlinear effects in dense
wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) based fiber
communication system. In this, the coupled light in the fiber
interacts with the molecular vibrations, due to which
scattered light is generated at a wavelength longer than that
of the coupled light [18-22]. If another longer wavelength
signal also present means, it undergoes amplification at the
expense of the original signal. This leads to the degradation
of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and hence system
performance.
(IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 2, No. 7, July 2010
Depletion of optical signal is calculated as:
N k-1
Pm[k] = Pt[k]-Pt[k] ∑ D[k,j]+∑ ( Pt[j]D[j,k]) (1)
i=k+1 j=1
for k = 1, 2,.., N
In eq. (1) N is number of channels transmitting from
transmitter. Pm[k] is modified kth channel signal power;
Pt[k] transmitted power of kth channel; D[i,j] is depletion of
power caused by jth channel to the ith channel; this depletion
is depending on peak Raman gain, effective length of
system, effective core area of fiber and polarization rate.
3.2 Effect of fourwave mixing
In the stimulating Raman scattering the optical fiber
plays an active role through the participation of molecular
vibrations. But in the case of this, optical fiber plays a
passive role, i.e., it simply mediates the interaction among
several co-propagating optical signals. In case of wavelength
division multiplexing systems, a number of optical waves
co-propagate at different wavelengths. Fourwave mixing
effect, three co-propagating optical signals of frequencies of
say fi, fj and fk interact and generate a fourth signal at
frequency fijk, where fijk = fi + fj + fk. The generated signal
can interface with the original signals if they are same
frequency, which leads to degradation of signal-to-noise
ratio.
Fourwave mixing power generated at the frequency fijk in
this case, i.e., with inline amplifiers, is (assuming equal
signal power P launched in all the wavelength channels)
as:[18-22]
P (fijk) = k2P 3e-a.La [{(M+1) Le}/Ae]2 ηijk d2ijk (2)
Whereas k = 32π3(X/n2c )
n is refractive index of the fiber, λ is center wavelength, X
is third order nonlinear electric susceptibility, P is power
injected in to the channel, a is fiber attenuation coefficient
per km, M is number of amplifier, Le is effective system
length, Ae is effective area of fiber, dijk is degeneracy factor;
and ηijk is fourwave mixing efficiency.
3.3 Effect of amplified spontaneous emission
Fiber loss limitation is overcome by periodically spaced
inline optical amplifiers. However, inline optical amplifiers
generate amplified spontaneous emission noise, which is
propagating along the fiber together with the signal. The
total amount of noise power can be calculated as:[18-22]
P ase = 2nsp (G-1) h f B0 M (3)
Where h is plank’s constant (6.63*10-34J s), f is center
frequency, G is gain of amplifier, B0 is equivalent
rectangular optical bandwidth in Hz, nsp is population
inversion parameter, M is number of amplifiers.
4. Modeling analysis of node throughput
The main objective of a node is capable to upload the data
traffic of a desired data rate on an available wavelength in a
 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 49
Vol. 2, No. 7, July 2010

specified time slot to be decided by the used service protocol.
As shown in fig. 1. the encoder block perform controlling
operation of multiplexing different wavelengths from
tunable sources. The traffic throughput linearly dependent
on arriving data rate until it much below the node handling
capacity but it becomes a complex function of the node,
traffic and network parameters. The node throughput ‘T’
can be mathematically written as: [19-23]
τ τ τ τ
T = µnα( p ){[1− exp(−( D )ρ)](C − D ) + ρ exp(−( D )ρ)}
τD τp τp τp
(4)
R
α = exp(− k ) (5)
b * BW
Whereas ρ is traffic intensity which is λτp , λ is number of
packets per second having duration of ‘ τp ‘ seconds. µn is
processing speed of node ideally it is taken as 1, ‘b’ is the
bandwidth utilization factor which is controlled by
reservation algorithm for source initiated reservation
protocol (SIR) it is taken as ‘x’, if it is ‘x’ then for
destination initiated reservation protocol (DIR) 2x; x may be
0.25, 0.5... ,’k’ is node fitting factor which models data
corruption made by the node and assumed to be unity. ‘BW’
is bandwidth of network, ‘R’ denotes data rate, ‘α’ is
processing factor for the node,’τp’ and ‘τD’ were packet and
delay time period, ‘C’ denotes channel capacity which is
dependent upon optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR).
5. Evaluation of system performance
The system performance (node throughput) was
calculated by using optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR). To
calculate optical signal-to-noise ratio the modified signal
due to the stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) has been
considered as the signal power and the total optical noise
due to amplified spontaneous emission noise (ASE),
fourwave mixing (FWM) has been taken as a noise signal as
in eq (6).
Center wavelength = 1.55x10-6m
Fiber attenuation coefficient at 1.55µm = 0.205dB/km
System length = 1000km
Effective core area of optical fiber = 50µcm2
Fiber dispersion coefficient at 1.55µm = 3.0ps/nm km
Third order nonlinear susceptibility X = 6x10-14m3/W
Rectangular optical bandwidth of an EDFA = 30nm
Population inversion parameter = 1.3
Number of channels = varied; 4, 16...
Refractive index of fiber = 1.45
Interchannel separation = varied; 0.8nm, 1.2nm …
Interamplifier separation = 100km
Bandwidth = 20GHz
Data rate = varied; 500Mbps, 1000Mbps …..
With the mathematical calculations optical signal-
to-noise ratio was varied in between 15dB to 24dB while
varying the input parameters like channel spacing, number
of channels so with this values channel capacity was
computed. The channel capacity controls the system
performance (node throughput) as shown in eq. (4)
6. Results and discussions
Simulation was performed under the Matlab 7.6
environment. The results shown in fig. 2, and fig.3 were
simulated under the signal-to-noise ratio of 15dB. From the
results it is clear that the node performance (throughput) is
higher in destination initiated reservation protocol (DIR)
compared to the source initiated reservation protocol (SIR)
and the linear nature of the curve is also sensitive to the data
rate and gives a larger range and slope at lower traffic speed
but reserves the tendency for a higher data rate and is in
qualitative agreement with the reported results in the
literature.

(Modified signal power by SRS)

OSNR = ----------------------------------------- (6)
(FWM Noise + ASE Noise)

The channel capacity limiting theorem from

Shannon in eq. (7) states that the signal-to-noise ratio and
bandwidth of the transmission medium decides the total
capacity of that medium that it can capable without errors.
That parameter takes in consideration while calculating the
system performance. Figure 2. Throughput vs traffic intensity under Signal to
noise ratio =15dB for source initiated reservation protocol
S for different data rates
C = BW log 2 (1 + ) (7)
N These results shows the destination initiated reservation
protocol (DIR) superiority over source initiated reservation
Parameters like input power, system length, and receiver protocol (SIR) in terms of through magnitude and relatively
sensitivity are fixed; the signal-to-noise ratio, data rate is better linearity with the incoming data traffic. These
varied. Some important parameters chosen for the protocols were evaluated for different data rates under
calculation are mentioned below: similar node and channel environment.
Input power per channel = 1mW
50
Fig 4 and fig 5 shows the improvement in the magnitude
of system performance with the increase of optical signal-to-
noise ratio. From these graphs it is proved that the increase
in signal-to-noise ratio causes corresponding increase in
channel capacity through that the node performance
increased. The signal-to-noise is depends upon effective core
area of fiber, channel spacing and interamplifier separation.
Figure 3. Throughput vs traffic intensity under Signal to
noise ratio =15dB for destination initiated reservation
protocol for different data rates
If the effective core area of fiber and channel separation
were increased then the fourwave mixing noise get reduced
as a result signal-to-noise ratio increased. The interamplifier
separation was chosen in such a way that the effect of the
amplified spontaneous noise, modified signal power from
stimulated Raman scattering gets reduced.
Figure 4. Throughput vs traffic intensity under Signal to
noise ratio =20dB for source initiated reservation protocol
for different data rates
With controlling these parameters with proper remedies
we can increase system performance of the fiber to the home
wavelength division multiplexing by utilizing maximum of
the channel capacity of the optical fiber communication
system for the applications of higher data rate multimedia to
the subscriber.
The present modeling analysis ignored the other
nonlinear effects like stimulated Brillioun scattering, cross-
phase modulation and polarization effects in fixing the value
of k, to maintain the analysis simple.
(IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 2, No. 7, July 2010
Figure 5. Throughput vs traffic intensity under Signal to
noise ratio =20dB for destination initiated reservation
protocol for different data rates
7. Conclusion
This modeling presents an analytical approach to
characterize the system performance under the all major
affecting conditions like nonlinear phenomena of optical
fiber at higher data rate applications. The increase in the
utilization of the optical fiber communication bandwidth
causes tremendous growth in the commercial applications to
the subscribers present in the networks like wavelength
division multiplexing fiber to the home. The approach
adopted was mathematical analysis and involves linear
model of the channel and node system behavior by
considering nonlinear effects of channel. The comparative
analysis for the both protocols which are present in
modeling analysis has been investigated for different values
of data rates and signal to noise ratio values. The results
validate that the analytical modeling and nonlinear effects
calculations shows a distinct influence of system
performance under different reservation protocols.
References
[1] P.E.Green, The future of fiber-optic computer
networks, IEEE .Comput.24 (1991) 78-87
[2] optical networks – A practical approach : Rajiv
ramaswamy, Kumar s.sivarajan
[3] G.P.Agarwal, Nonlinear fiber Optics, Academic Press,
New York, 1989.
[4] C.A. Brackett, Dense wavelength division multiplexing
networks: principals and applications, IEEE J.Sel.Areas
Commun. 8 (1990) 948-964.
[5] Gurmeet Kaur, M.L.Singh, M.S.Patterh Effects of fiber
nonlinearities in a WDM transmission system,
Opt.Int.J.Light Electron. Opt. (2009).
[6] Gurmeet Kaur, M.L.Singh, Effects of four-wave mixing
in WDM optical fiber systems, Optik 120 (2009) 268-
273.
[7] A.Mukherjee, S.P.Singh, V.K.Chaubey, Wavelength
conversion algorithm in an intelligent WDM network,
Opt. Commun. 230(2004) 59-65.
 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 51
Vol. 2, No. 7, July 2010

[8] V.K.Chaubey, S.abhirami, G.Peres, Performance [23] A.R.Chraplyvy, What is the actual capacity of single
evaluation of an intelligent routed WDM mesh network: mode fibers in amplified lightwave systems, IEEE
an analytical approach, Opt. fiber Technol.13 (2007) Photon.Technol.Lett.5 (1993) 665-668
129-134.
[9] X.Yuan, R.melhem, R.Gupta, Distributed path
reservation algorithms for multiplexed all-optical
interconnection networks, IEEE Trans. Compt.48
(1999) 1355-1363.
[10] A.V. Sichani, H.T.Mouftah, A novel signaling nested
reservation protocol for all-optical networks, IEEE
J.Select. Areas Commun. 23(2005) 277-282.
[11] G.Kaur, M.L.Singh, Effect of four wave mixing in
optical communication, in; Proceedings of International
Conference on High Performance Computing ,
Networking and Communication Systems, (HPCNS-
07), Orlando, USA,2007
[12] D.G.Schadt, Effect of amplifier spacing on fourwave
mixing in multichannel coherent communications,
Electron Opt.2007.
[13] S.P.Singh, S.kar, V.K. Jain, Effect of four-wave
mixing on optimal placement of optical amplifier in
WDM star networks, Fibre Integrated Opt 25 (2006)
111-140.
[14] A.Fellegara, Theoretical and experimental
investigation of the optimum location for an in-line
fiber amplifier in high bit rate transmission systems.
Opt.Fiber Technol. 2(3) (1996) 225-234.
[15] I.B.Djordjevic, Transmission limitations of WDM
transmission systems with dispersion compensated links
in the presence of fiber nonlinearities, in: proceedings
of TELSIKS, IEEE, Nis, Yugoslavia, 2001, pp. 496-
499.
[16] M.L.Singh, I.S.Hudiara, A piecewise linear solution
for nonlinear SRS effect in DWDM fiber optic
communication systems, J.Microwave Optoelectron. 3
(4) (2004) 29-38.
[17 F.Forghieri, R.W.Tkach, A.R.Chraplyvy, WDM
systems with unequally spaced channels, J.Lightwave
Technol. 13 (5) (1995) 889-897.

[18] F.Forghieri, R.W.Tkach, A.R.Chraplyvy, D.marcuse,

reduction of four wave mixing cross talk in WDM
system using unequally spaced channels, IEEE
Photon.Technol. Lett. 6 (6) (1994) 754-756.
[19] V.K.chaubey, K.divakar, Modeling and simulation of
WDM optical networks under traffic control protocols,
optical fiber technology 15(2009) 95-99.
[20] K. Inoue, H. Toba, Fiber four wave mixing in multi-
amplifier systems with non uniform chromatic
dispersion, J.Lightwave technol. (1995) 89-93.
[21] M.W. Maeda , W.B Sessa, W.I. Way, A. Yi-Yan,
L.Curtis, R. Spicer, R.I. Laming, The effect of four
wave mixing in fibers on optical frequency division
multiplexed systems, J.Lightwave Technol. 8 (9) (1990)
1402-1408.
[22] N.A. Olsson, Lightwave systems with optical
amplifiers, J.Lightwave Technol. 7 (1989) 1071-1082.