A Novel Technique to Simultaneously Transmit ACO-OFDM and DCO-OFDM in IM/DD Systems

In this paper, we present a new form of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) for intensity modulated direct detection (IM/DD) systems. This new form of OFDM uses asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM) on the odd frequency subcarriers and DC biased optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM) on the even subcarriers. By using a form of interference cancellation both the ACO-OFDM and the DCO-OFDM signals can be recovered at the receiver. It is shown that the DCO-OFDM component causes no interference on the odd frequency subcarriers so the receiver processing for the ACO-OFDM signal is identical to a conventional ACO-OFDM system. The ACO-OFDM signal causes clipping noise which falls on the even subcarriers. However, this interference can be estimated and cancelled at the receiver. The cancellation process results in a 3 dB noise penalty in the DCO-OFDM component. Simulation results are presented for an additive white Gaussian noise channel and it is shown that the new technique can achieve better optical power performance than the conventional schemes.