Eye Patterns and Error Rate Analysis in Optical Communications

David Corish
Supervised by Art OHare

Personal Details On completing a level one certicate in Electronic Technology, I entered DIT in 2001. Initially my course subjects included Maths, Chemistry, Physics, Management and Spanish. In Fourth year these were narrowed down to Physics and Physics Technology, which I have found enjoyable and challenging, I hope to continue into postgraduate study. My academic interests include Optical Communications, Quantum Technology, Solid State Physics, Biophysics, Instrumentation and Medical Physics. My hobbies include music, writing and socialising, playing a range of sports including swimming, soccer, hurling, golf, Gaelic football and Karate. Project Summary In bre optical communication systems a transmitter sends an optical signal which is modulated

to carry data of some form to the receiver through an optical bre. The main method used in the characterization of an optical communications system is that of Bit Error Rate (BER) analysis. In this, the rate at which transmitted 1 and 0 bits are received in error is calculated via comparison of transmitted sequence to the received sequence. This bit by bit comparison can be a long tedious process, thus the need for a more time efcient but reliable method to estimate the BER of the system. The aim of this project was to validate a student education apparatus which could be used to estimate the BER and investigate whether this setup could be used to quantitatively and qualitatively show the effects of varied system parameters (e.g. length of bre and bit rate) on received signal quality as suggested by theory and to analyse the limits imposed by such variation in parameters. In addition to such investigations the effects of the two main mechanisms which degrade the BER, Attenuation and Dispersion, were also investigated. Ideally, in optical communication systems, it is desired to transmit a signal (of optical pulses) for long lengths of bre, at high bit rates (more information per second) and receive it without errors. In practice the upper limits of transmission length and bit rate are a result of the possibility of an unacceptable number of errors, in the received signal, e.g. above the most common maximum BER of 10-9, which means one error is tolerated in 109 bits sent. Understanding the origin of such errors is essential in order to be able to reduce them and improve the performance of the system.

Figure 1. Illustration of noise leading to error in threshold detection. Received bits 1 and 2 correspond to the transmitted bit values, whereas bits 3 and 4 are received in error. (Illustration OptoSci)

Figure 1 illustrates how the possible errors can occur in a system. Threshold detection is used to make the decision as to whether a 1 or 0 bit is being sent. It does this by comparing the

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Figure 2. Screenshot example of a generated eye diagram from which rise time and jitter measurements were made. The formation of jitter can be seen circled on the bright yellow trace.

Figure 3. Graph of Log Bit Error Rate (BER) versus received optical power, also shown is the extrapolation of a power penalty for dispersion at a BER of 10-9.

received signal voltage with a threshold voltage. Above threshold voltage, the bit is interpreted as a 1 bit and below is taken as a 0 bit. Figure 1 shows how noise uctuations on the signal level can drag a designated 1 bit below or bring a 0 bit above threshold, hence the bits are received in error. Clearly it can be seen, an increase in signal to noise ratio (SNR) would decrease BER. This gure is also indicative of how any mechanism which serves to bring signal noise closer to the threshold can cause an increase the BER. As the signal propagates down the length of bre it suffers power loss due to Attenuation (hence a decreased SNR), and experiences a spreading of pulse into neighbouring pulse time slots as a result of increased rise time caused by dispersion. In this project eye diagrams were used to obtain information and observe trends under varying system parameters of link length and transmission rate. The eye diagram is generated by superposition of random bit sequences, giving a statistical mean of signal pulses sequences. In addition, a software package was used to estimate BER values via a Gaussian approximation tted to the voltage histograms of eye diagram signal levels. The results and trends obtained were in agreement with what was expected from theory, i.e. attenuation and dispersion both increased with link length and caused increases in BER, they also illustrated the dependence of dispersion on source linewidth. Figure 2 shows an example of a generated eye diagram. In this eye diagram the formation of jitter can also be seen (circled), note the bright yellow trace is the signal trace

at instant of screen capture, jitter is a result of conversion of amplitude variation into timing variations. The nal objective of this project was to separate the two main BER degrading mechanisms, attenuation and dispersion and establish a power penalty for dispersion. This was achieved using various attenuators along with various lengths of bre. The BER and received optical power (ROP) were measured for Signals transmitted through various attenuators (hence suffered attenuation and not dispersion) and also for signals transmitted through various lengths of bre (which caused both attenuation and dispersion). And so the effects of dispersion were essentially separated from those of attenuation. Figure 3 shows the graph obtained of Log(BER) against ROP. A power penalty was extrapolated from the graph at a BER of 10-9. This power penalty represented the power required to increase the signal power in order to achieve a BER of 10-9 in the presence of dispersion, under those system parameters. Note that in order to obtain a better range of data, possible system modications have been suggested in my project report. The results obtained using this apparatus agreed with what theory suggests, the apparatus was found to be robust and reasonably student-proof. It was concluded that the system functioned as a satisfactory teaching aid and along with the modications suggested in my project report, could be used to establish power penalties in the presence of dispersion.

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