Physical Realizations of Multidimensional Voronoi Constellations in Optical Communication Systems

• Abstract:Multidimensional geometric shaping has been shown to outperform uniform quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) in optical communication systems but the complexity of symbol decision and bit mapping can often be significant as dimensionality increases. In this paper, a low-complexity geometric shaping method based on multidimensional lattices is investigated both in experiments and simulations. The modulation formats designed based on this method are called Voronoi constellations (VCs) and we study them in 8, 16, and 32 dimensions. We obtain transmission reach improvements of up to 22 and 70% for VCs compared to 4QAM and 16QAM, respectively, in nonlinear long-haul fiber transmission. Moreover, we compare different physical realizations of multidimensional VCs over wavelengths, polarizations, and time slots in both the Gaussian and nonlinear fiber channels. We demonstrate that different physical realizations perform similarly in the fiber-optic back-to-back channel. However, in long-haul transmission systems, spreading the dimensions over time slots can increase the transmission reach up to 4% compared to wavelengths and polarizations. Furthermore, the mutual information and generalized mutual information are estimated and compared to QAM formats at the same spectral efficiencies.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Telekommunikation (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Telecommunications (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Atom- och molekylfysik och optik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Kommunikationssystem (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Communication Systems (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Signalbehandling (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Signal Processing (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Den kondenserade materiens fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Condensed Matter Physics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Optical communication

geometric shaping

multidimensional modulation format

lattice

Voronoi constellations

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)