In 5th generation (5G) and Beyond 5G mobile communication systems, it is expected that numerous antennas will be densely deployed to realize ultra-broadband communication and uniform coverage. However, as the number of antennas increases, total power consumption of all antennas will also increase, which leads to a negative impact on the environment and operating costs of telecommunication operators. Thus, it is necessary to simplify an antenna structure to suppress the power consumption of each antenna. On the other hand, as a way to realize ultra-broadband communication, millimeter waves will be utilized because they can transmit signals with a broader bandwidth than lower frequencies. However, since millimeter waves have a large propagation loss, a propagation distance is shorter than that of low frequencies. Therefore, in order to extend the propagation distance, it is necessary to increase an equivalent isotropic radiated power by beamforming with phased array antenna. In this paper, a phased antenna array module in combined with analog radio over fiber (A-RoF) technology for 40-GHz millimeter wave is developed and evaluated for the first time. An 8×8 phased array antenna for 40-GHz millimeter wave with integrated photodiodes and RF chains has been developed, and end-to-end transmission experiment including 20km A-RoF transmission and 3-m over-the-air transmission from the developed phased array antenna has been conducted. The results showed that the 40-GHz RF signal after the end-to-end transmission satisfied the criteria of 3GPP signal quality requirements within ±50 degrees of main beam direction.

We propose a time synchronization technique for mobile base stations (BSs) by distributing the reference time information from one optical network unit (ONU) to the BSs under different ONUs over Time Division Multiplexing Passive Optical Network (TDM-PON) using common Precision Time Protocol (PTP). The time accuracy, long term time stability and time source switchover functionality for redundancy are confirmed by experimental verification. Furthermore, an interoperability test between a 10G-EPON prototype in which the proposed protocol is implemented and a commercial Time Division Long Term Evolution (TD-LTE) BS is successfully demonstrated obtaining time error within 119ns, which is much less than the criterion value of 1.5µs, for 60 hours.

We propose and demonstrate a simple and novel technique to accelerate the carrier injection/depletion processes in an RSOA by applying instantaneous injection/depletion currents at the transition edges of the modulation signal to force the carrier density to respond at a high speed and, as a result, to increase its modulation speed. We theoretically and experimentally show that, by using the proposed technique, it is possible to obtain 5 Gbit/s optical BPSK signal from an RSOA having a modulation bandwidth of only 0.9 GHz.

The intermediate frequency-over-fiber (IFoF) technology has attracted attention as an alternative transmission scheme to the functional split for the next-generation mobile fronthaul links due to its high spectral efficiency and perfect centralized control ability. In this paper, we discuss and clarify network architectures suited for IFoF, based on its advantages over the functional split. One of the major problems for IFoF transmission is dispersion-induced RF power fading, which limits capacity and transmission distance. We introduce our previous work, in which high-capacity and long-distance IFoF transmission was demonstrated by utilizing a parallel intensity/phase modulators (IM/PM) transmitter which can effectively avoid the fading. The IFoF technology with the proposed scheme is well suited for the long-distance mobile fronthaul links for the 5th generation (5G) mobile system and beyond.

A prototype of a novel mobile viewer system consisting of a mobile phone and a 13.1-inch 4096-color electronic paper display has been developed. The basic concept of the system, the technological study for realizing the concept, and the specifications of the prototype are described. Possible applications of the system are also proposed.

Coherent transceivers are now regarded as promising candidates for upgrading the current 400Gigabit Ethernet (400GbE) transceivers to 800G. However, due to the complicated structure of a dual-polarization IQ modulator (DP-IQM) with its bulky polarization-beam splitter/comber (PBS/PBC), the increase in the transmitter size and cost is inevitable. In this paper, we propose a compact PBS/PBC-free transmitter structure with a straight-line configuration. By using the concept of polarization differential modulation, the proposed transmitter is capable of generating a DP phase-shift-keyed (DP-PSK) signal, which makes it directly applicable to the current coherent systems. A detailed analysis of the system performance reveals that the imperfect equalization and the bandwidth limitation at the receiver are the dominant penalty factors. Although such a penalty is usually unacceptable in long-haul applications, the proposed transmitter can be attractive due to its significant simplicity and compactness for short-reach applications, where the cost and the footprint are the primary concerns.

Various network services, such as virtual private network, cloud computing and Internet protocol television, are often provided across multiple network operators. The difficulty in managing the quality of service across multiple operator domains is the barrier to adoption especially to service level agreement-sensitive and mission critical cases. Federating network resources among operators is necessary to manage the quality of service across operators. To manage network resources of other operator domains, the network operator's federation mechanisms aiming at a future open access network model are essential. In this paper, the mechanisms of the signaling process as well as the capability of the bandwidth broker are proposed for open access networking, where multiple operators are connected via a common access network operator. Considering that both the next generation network and the non-next generation network architectures must coexist, we have analyzed federation mechanisms for establishing practical functional extensions to existing bandwidth broker implementations for the federation signaling. Based on the analysis, the designs of the federation signaling and the required bandwidth broker functional models are proposed. The proposed design is prototyped and the demonstration of the federation signaling shows that the federation mechanism can assure the bandwidth of a targeted live data stream on demand across the trunk and the access network operators even under a congested situation.

This paper proposes a simple and practical scheme to decide the direction of a phased array antenna beam in wireless access systems using Radio-over-Fiber (RoF) technique. The feasibility of the proposed scheme is confirmed by the optical and wireless transmission experiments using 2GHz RoF signals. In addition, two-dimensional steering operation in the millimeter-wave band is demonstrated for targeting future high-speed wireless communication systems. The required system parameters for practical use are also provided by investigating the induced transmission penalties. The proposed detection scheme is applicable to two-dimensional antenna beam steering in the millimeter-wave band by properly designing the fiber length and wavelength variable range.