Four-Channel Wavelength Division Multiplexing using Optisystem

CE 1.1 Introduction
This Project is entitled “Four-Channel Wavelength Division Multiplexing using Optisystem”. This
was an assignment project for the course of Network Design Exercise (ELE5NDE) of masters in
Telecommunication and network engineering at LaTrobe University, Bundoora, Victoria,
Australia. The duration of this project was 2 months which was carried from 5th of April to 30th of
May 2014 and was completed exactly within the specified time. This was a simulation project
done by using software called Optisystem by Optiwave in the lab environment of Beth Gleeson
building at Bundoora Campus. This project was carried out by a team of two, including me and a
fellow friend Abhimanyu Pandey. I contributed mostly to the research and theory section of the
project.
CE 1.2 Background
The Optical Fiber communication technology has many advantages over electrical modes of
communication where reliability for a long distance transmission with low BER(Bit Error Rate)
(BER) is significant. I present the technique which incorporates single mode fiber to send data
using 4 channel WDM (Wavelength division multiplexing) and De multiplexing at a distance of
120 kilometers with the speed of 10 Giga bits per second (Gbps). The Design of the 4 Channel
WDM was carried out using three modules fundamentally such as Transmitter, Channel and
Receiver as such of any other communication system.
The optical transmitter converts electrical signals into optical signal which is then transmitted
through the fiber, and eventually to the receiver that has several units to process the distorted
optical signals back to electrical signals. The general outlook can be as shown below:

Transmitter Optical Fiber Receiver

TRANSMITTER Optical Fiber Receiver

CE 1.2.1: Major objective of this project is to obtain BER of 10-6 or less for the given specification.
We also had to comment on inter-relation between the optical fiber parameters such as amplifier
gain, optical power vs Bit error rate and Dispersion etc. Another objective of this project was to
apply similar working principle to demonstrate 64 Channel WDM and analyze the system.
CE 1.2.2: I was interested in the optical fiber channel research and optimization since the start of
the project. So I basically focused on three components of channel, namely optical amplifier EDFA
(Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier), DCF (Dispersion Compensation Fiber) and properties of SMF
(single mode fiber) itself. My focus area also extended to whole receiver module and some portions
of transmitter module because it was the project of only two.
CE 1.2.3
 Four-Channel Wavelength Division Multiplexing using Optisystem

Mr. Mohsen
Goodarzi

Mr. Karthik
Kamalakannanand

Abhimanyu
Mahesh Tripathy
Pandey

Figure 1 Organizational chart

There were only two members in this project but we carried out every tasks in formal basis. We
conducted regular formal meetings with our tutor Mr. Karthik Kamalakannanand and shared our
tasks by using decisions made in the meetings. Documentation portion were divided according to
the task completed where I did the final formatting and Proof Reading. Final assessment works
were project report and Individual Presentation.
CE 1.2.4: My duties included channel design and receiver design. Basically Transmission line
design was the most critical to the project because of 120 kms of fiber route and the challenges to
design transmission parameters like amplifiers, compensation fibers and modulation techniques.
Similarly, receiver module included the choice of photodetector, regenerators etc. My duties also
included some simulation tasks related to channel and receiver design.
CE 1.2.5: Design Selection: Dispersion for SMF = 16.75 ps/nm/km, Linear attenuation
=0.2db/km, Slope for dispersion=0.075 ps/nm2/km and reference wavelength=1550nm. DCF
Dispersion=-90ps/nm/km and attenuation =0.2dB/km
CE 1.3 Personal Engineering Activity
I completed most of the initial research activity whereas most of the preliminary simulation part
was undertaken by my project partner. However, I revised and edited simulation tasks after the
initial phase of the project.
CE 1.3.1: I placed PRBS of order 15 and external modulated transmitter with lasers. The frequency
of first laser was 193.1 THz and frequency spacing was 100GHz .I started with the transmission
line design on self. The transmission line was a combination of Single Mode fiber, EDFA and
Dispersion Compensation Fiber.
 Four-Channel Wavelength Division Multiplexing using Optisystem

Figure 2Channel configuration for the design

Another portion was a receiver module design which consisted of Photo-detector PIN, a low pass
Bessel Filter and a 3R generator component. I considered a Bessel filter for it’s linearity with flat
group delay and better shaping which ensures the separation of channels in frequency domain and
suppresses the linear cross-talk.

Figure 3Receiver module

I used the viewing tool of optisystem software and its eye diagram to track and rectify my
immediate output results from the simulation. Another tool was WDM analyzer which I used to
observe the presence of carriers and Signal to noise ratio.
CE 1.3.2 I made two loops of 60 kms each as in figure 2 to design complete length of 120 kms. I
needed DCF to compensate the chromatic or material dispersion caused by the use of SMF. This
is due to the fact that the glass we used varies slightly with the wavelength. So for every 50 kms
length of SMF, I used 10 km of DCF which I based on arithmetic calculation for dispersion
calculation. Example, Dispersion caused by Fiber = 16.75*50 = 837.5 ps/nm whereas Dispersion
cancellation by DCF = -90*10 = -900 ps/nm which is seemingly sufficient in the cancelation
process. I used negative sign to show the dispersion being cancelled. Practically, DCF could be
implemented by varying the temperature for dispersion tuning or using virtually imaged phased
arrays. But for simulation, I got direct access to DCF by just changing the parameters.
Another important factor was optical power amplifier for which I used EDFA with two gain values
i.e. 10db and 5db. EDFA’s amplifies optical signal by using pump lasers and uses the phenomena
 Four-Channel Wavelength Division Multiplexing using Optisystem

of stimulated emission. I used EDFA to compensate for large distance transmission losses. As
shown in the design parameter, the attenuation of SMF=0.2dB/km which makes it 0.2*50=10 dB
loss for 1st 50 km segment which is why I chose EDFA with the gain of 10dB after this segment.
I also used an EDFA with gain of 5 dB gain to amplify optical signal attenuated by DCF at next
10 km of length. This is a part of first-order linear dispersion cancellation whereas the second-
order dispersion is not fully compensated. The second-order dispersion occurs at certain
wavelengths other than the center wavelength which is not fully covered by my cancellation
technique, especially while I did the 64 channel simulation.
The next portion of my project was an extension to the 64 channel WDM. WDM Multiplexer that
I used in my design was for the 64 input ports and center frequency kept as 196.3 THz for the
internal filters which are equally spaced. The Bandwidth used was 6.4 THz which could be
accounted as 64 * 100GHz (equally spaced channels).

Figure 4Block diagram of 64 channel WDM

Our System starting wavelength λ1 was 1552 nm and has a spacing of 0.8nm for 64 channels. At
the Receiver I deployed BER analyzer to the desired WDM output ports of De-multiplexer which
was my ultimate output tester for the application. This calculates the system performance giving
the useful output parameters such as BER, Q-Factor, threshold and Eye aperture of a system.

CE 1.3.3: This was a simulation task which is why the output BER were not consistent and were
variable at all instances. The best value was obtained in the order of 10-8 and at an instance, I
performed the simulation for whole length of 120 km for 4 channel WDM and got the following
outputs:
Channels(THz) BER
193.1 6.015*10-6
193.2 4.45*10-6
193.3 4.6*10-6
193.4 9.8*10-9
 Four-Channel Wavelength Division Multiplexing using Optisystem

I observed BER vs. laser power relation and did some changes in laser power level. The value of
BER was equal to 6.01509*10-7 when the input laser power was equal to 15mw. Similarly the
value of BER was equal to 4.814*10-7 when the laser input power was 5 mw. I noted that there is
a saturation level which is reached in this case. I increased power by 10 mW but didn’t find any
remarkable increase in the order of BER.
CE 1.3.4: At an initial stage, I thoroughly used the simulation software to see what could be done.
I gave the initial parameters for the transmitter design like optical pulse generator and optical
modulator then my friend started simulation for it with other necessary startup blocks such as
multiplexers and selection of precise blocks. Meanwhile I started to search necessary materials to
design optical fiber channel then, we together sat for simulation whereby he was already much
familiar with the simulation tool. So it started with step by step design and then I continued in a
similar manner to design the receiver module. We followed up with our lecturer whenever we
found our objective vague. Final results were optimized by both of us sitting for hours to get the
things just right.
CE 1.4 Summary
I got the comprehensive idea of working mechanism of WDM and optical fiber infrastructures.
This not only gave me idea about the transmission and reception process but also enriched my
knowledge on optical fiber and its contribution on management of high bandwidth data which is
an evolving substance of telecommunication industry today. This project met its goal on analyzing
properties of WDM when used for a long distance. I contributed 50% to this project, yet I am
aware on each and every aspects of it because I was enthusiastically involved throughout its time
period.