5g and Beyond

5G Millimeter Wave Applications

Millimeter waves are capable of delivering low-latency and high-bandwidth communications, and because of this the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) defined three main usage scenarios for 5G.

• Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB): can support several sub-use cases including cloud office/gaming, virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR) and three-dimension/ultra-high-definition (3D/UHD) video.
• Massive Machine-type Communications (mMTC): for the IoT, requiring low power consumption and low data rates for very large numbers of connected devices.
• Ultra-reliable and Low Latency Communications (URLLC): for safety and mission-critical applications, such as industrial automation and robotics, autonomous driving, drone-based delivery, and remote medical assistance.

• Traditional base station
• Introduction of C-RAN, splitting BBU in to RRH

PSI’s 5G Analog Link Demo

PSI has developed analog photonic link products that support continuous and seamless transportation of 5G signals up to 40GHz and beyond. Based on cutting edge low-Vπ modulator and high-linearity photo receiver technologies, the PSI analog photonic link features unparalleled low noise figure (NF) and high spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) that are keys to the high-fidelity signal transportation.

In the demonstration below, we show a PSI analog photonic link that connects a high-speed signal generator to an ESA through 1-mile long fibers without any RF amplification. Two 5G signals, a 128 QAM signal at 28GHz and a 256 QAM signal at 38GHz, are transported. In the video, we switch the signal generator and the displays (ESA and VSA) to show that both 5G signals are supported without the need of link reconfiguration. As a comparison, the 1-mile fiber link is approximately equivalent to a 10-feet long 2.4mm coaxial cable in transported signal quality and the latency of this link is limited by the speed of light.