Lambda-based Access and Metropolitan PassIve Optical Networks – LAMPION

LAMPION project aims at demonstrating the feasibility of developing a Wavelength Division Multiplexing Passive Optical Network (WDM PON) system with the purpose to use it in mobile fronthaul (Cloud Radio Access Network context) and Dense WDM metropolitan networks.
WDM PON provides the ability to associate one wavelength to a single user which could be of any type (business, long distance network termination, mobile network termination, access network termination). Commercial systems are available with transmission bit rate of 1,25Gbit/s but didn’t reach a wide market yet. Indeed the cost of the technologies developed so far reduced the usage of the WDM PON in the access networks and moreover WDM-PON hasn’t been standardized by the institutions. LAMPION proposes extend the performances of a DWDM PON system in terms of bit rate (up to 10Gbit/s) and reach (>80km).
The WDM technology chosen in LAMPION project is based on self seeded Reflective Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (RSOA) since it brings advantages in terms of cost using colourless and identical devices at each termination of the network and moreover simplified wavelength operation: the wavelength is automatically and only set by the connection to a channel of a multiplexer associated to a mirror, both of them placed in the infrastructure of the network. This operation creates an external cavity source whose length vary according to the distance between the multiplexer and the mirror.
Special efforts will be put in the project to study the quality of the source created by the self seeded RSOA and will lead to determine specific ways to improve its performances in transmission. Furthermore, new RSOAs will be developed and a complete evaluation of those components will be performed.
To enhance the transmission performances, optical amplification will be experimentally tested and Forward Error codes will be developed specifically for this technology. Finally, in order to prove the feasibility of the system, RSOAs will be integrated in small form factors (SFPs or XFPs) with associated service cards and FEC embedded. LAMPION will disseminate its progress and results towards standardization bodies, scientific conferences and journals, and a final event to demonstrate a field trial.