Non-data-aided and universal cycle slip detection and correction for coherent communication systems

We propose a simple non-data-aided (or unsupervised) and universal cycle slip detection and correction (CS-DC) technique based on locating the minimum of the sliding average of twice estimated phase noise. The CS-DC can be appended to any carrier phase estimation(CPE) technique and is modulation format independent. We analytically derive the probability density function of the CS detection metric and study how the sliding window length and detection threshold affects CS detection performance. Simulation results reveal significant cycle slips reduction for various modulation formats with a residual CS probability of 2 x 10(-7) for single carrier system even in unrealistic highly nonlinear system setups. In addition, we show that a second stage of CS-DC with a different sliding window length can further reduce the cycle slip probability by at least an order of magnitude. We also show that CS-DC is tolerant to inter-channel nonlinearities and residue frequency offset effects. Overall, the proposed CS-DC technique can be used in conjunction to other CS reduction techniques to maximize the ability of CS mitigation in next generation optical transceivers. (C)2014 Optical Society of America