Hybrid two-level MPPM-MDPSK modulation for high-speed optical communication networks.

A hybrid optical modulation approach is described, which layers a continuous wave $M$M-ary differential phase-shift keying ($M{\rm DPSK}$MDPSK) and a two-level ($2L$2L) multipulse pulse-position modulation (MPPM) intensity-modulated signal for improved spectral efficiency. These $2L$2L techniques are a generalization of earlier hybrid MPPM-$M{\rm DPSK}$MDPSK techniques and have the added advantage of reducing transmitter and detector complexities over previous hybrid modulation approaches. The spectral and power efficiencies for the proposed $2L$2L-MPPM-$M{\rm DPSK}$MDPSK modulation techniques are formulated and shown to have the highest spectral efficiency in comparison to other hybrid techniques with lower implementation complexity. The performance of the proposed $2L$2L hybrid techniques is quantified over free-space optical (FSO) networks as well as fiber networks and verified using Monte Carlo simulation. For FSO channels, the proposed $2L$2L-MPPM-$M{\rm DPSK}$MDPSK technique outperforms the traditional MPPM-$M{\rm DPSK}$MDPSK scheme by approximately 2 dB at a bit-error rate (BER) of ${10^{-4}}$10^-4 and a spectral efficiency of 2.5 bit/s/Hz. Similarly, in optical fiber, the proposed scheme relaxes the impact of nonlinearity in comparison to traditional MPPM-$M{\rm DPSK}$MDPSK. Specifically, at a ${\rm BER}{=10^{-3}}$BER=10^-3, the $2L$2L-MPPM-$M{\rm DPSK}$MDPSK technique outreaches the MPPM-$M{\rm DPSK}$MDPSK by 2000 km at a spectral efficiency of 2.5 bit/s/Hz and an average transmit power of $-{3}\,\,{\rm dBm}$-3dBm.