Low Cost Transparent Radio-over-Fibre System for UWB Based Home Network
Résumé
We show for the first time the feasibility of a multipoint to multipoint architecture for the distribution of ultra wide band radio signals over multimode fibre with low cost components. In a few years home networks will have to work at speeds of 1 Gbit/s following the deployment of fibre to the home and to satisfy the explosion of broadband services [1]. Preferably, such a network should have a wireless connectivity. Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio is able to provide high bit-rates, but with coverage limited to a few metres [2-3], thus Radio over Fibre (RoF) distributed antenna systems become of interest to extend the UWB coverage. Previous papers have addressed the transmission of pulsed and OFDM based UWB on optical channels only [4-6]. Two recent works have shown the feasibility of UWB over multimode and single-mode fibre [7-8] respectively, but only in the case of a point to point (Pt2Pt) architecture. Here, we present the results of the French BILBAO project that investigates architectures and low cost solutions for a home UWB based network on multimode fibre (MMF). We focus on OFDM UWB in the 3-5GHz band.