RoF-RF over Fiber basics
This page describes RF over Fiber(RoF) basics and mention RF over fiber component manufacturers. It covers RF over fiber connectors such as FC-APC(Angle Polished Connectors) and SC-APC.
Following are the merits of RF over fiber system due to which it has become popular.
• As we know RF loss increases with increase in frequency and/or length in conventional coaxial cables.
Due to this fiber optic cables are used for transmission and reception of radio frequency(RF) signal.
• Fiber optic cables neither couple nor leak the signal and hence are ideal under noisy RF
channel conditions.
• Fiber optic cable assemblies are smaller and lighter.
• They offer wider bandwidth as well as higher frequency tansmission.
• lower cost of the fiber.
• Single mode fiber cable is used as RF carrier.
Figure-1 depicts simple 1-way RF over fiber system. As shown RF Transmitter part is interfaced with FO TX part. The RF signal is carried over the fiber cable to the other end. At the receiver FO RX converts the signal in the original RF form. In this system, FO TX is referred as 'head end' while FO RX is referred as 'remote end'.
The figure-2 depicts 2-Way RF over fiber(RoF) system. As shown directional coupler is used to couple the signal into two parts viz. RF Antenna and Base station system. Duplexer is used between fiber optic transceiver and coupler. At the receiver the signal is amplified and fed to the duplexer and provided for necessary RF processing.
In 2-Way fiber system, two optical frequencies are used, one for transmit direction and the other for
receive direction. For example, 1330 nm and 1510 nm.
The duplexer functions as Wavelength Division Multiplexer and Demultiplexer for these signals.
It is also known by the term RFoG or RF over Glass Fiber.
RF over Fiber component manufacturers
FC-APC and SC-APC are used as fiber cable connectors. Following are the RF over fiber(RoF) component manufacturers.
• Finisar Corporation
• Photonic Systems Inc.
• RFOptic Ltd.
• EMCORE Corporation
• Foxcom (provides RF-2-Fiber solutions)
• Optical Zonu Corporation
• Pulse Power & Measurement
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