This article presents an experimental demonstration of a high-capacity millimeter-wave 5G NR signal transmission with analog radio-over-fiber (ARoF) fronthaul over multi-core fiber and full real-time processing. The demonstration validates the core of the blueSPACE fronthaul architecture which combines ARoF fronthaul with space division multiplexing in the optical distribution network to alleviate the fronthaul capacity bottleneck and maintain a centralized radio access network with fully centralized signal processing. The introduction of optical beamforming in the blueSPACE architecture brings true multi-beam transmission and enables full spatial control over the RF signal. The proposed ARoF architecture features a transmitter that generates the ARoF signal and an optical signal carrying a reference local oscillator employed for downconversion at the remote unit from a single RF reference at the central office. A space division multiplexing based radio access network with multi-core fibre allows parallel transport of the uplink ARoF signal and reference local oscillator at the same wavelength over separate cores. A complete description of the real-time signal processing and experimental setup is provided and system performance is evaluated. Transmission of an 800 MHz wide extended 5G NR fronthaul signal over a 7-core fibre is shown with full real-time signal processing, achieving 1.4 Gbit/s with a bit error rate \(<3.8\times 10^{-3}\) and thus below the limit for hard-decision forward error correction with 7% overhead.

本文提供了通过多芯光纤通过模拟光纤无线（ARoF）前传和全实时处理的大容量毫米波5G NR信号传输的实验演示。该演示验证了blueSPACE前传架构的核心，该架构将ARoF前传与光分配网络中的空分复用相结合，以缓解前传容量瓶颈，并维护具有完全集中式信号处理功能的集中式无线接入网。blueSPACE体系结构中引入的光束成形技术带来了真正的多光束传输，并实现了对RF信号的完全空间控制。拟议的ARoF体系结构的特征在于，一个发送器生成ARoF信号，并在光信号中承载参考本地振荡器，该参考本地振荡器用于在远端单元从中心局的单个RF参考进行下变频。具有多芯光纤的基于空分复用的无线接入网络允许上行链路ARoF信号和参考本地振荡器在不同的内核上以相同波长并行传输。提供了实时信号处理和实验设置的完整描述，并评估了系统性能。显示了通过7芯光纤传输800 MHz扩展的5G NR扩展前传信号的全实时信号处理，实现了1.4 Gbit / s的误码率 具有多芯光纤的基于空分复用的无线接入网络允许上行链路ARoF信号和参考本地振荡器在不同的内核上以相同波长并行传输。提供了实时信号处理和实验设置的完整描述，并评估了系统性能。显示了通过7芯光纤传输800 MHz扩展5G NR扩展前传信号的全实时信号处理，可实现1.4 Gbit / s的误码率 具有多芯光纤的基于空分复用的无线电接入网络允许上行链路ARoF信号和参考本地振荡器在不同的内核上以相同波长并行传输。提供了实时信号处理和实验设置的完整描述，并评估了系统性能。显示了通过7芯光纤传输800 MHz扩展5G NR扩展前传信号的全实时信号处理，可实现1.4 Gbit / s的误码率\（<3.8 \乘以10 ^ {-3} \），因此低于硬决策前向纠错的限制，且开销为7％。