Improved BER Performance of Real-Time DDO-OFDM Systems Using Interleaved Reed-Solomon Codes

In this letter, we have experimentally demonstrated a Reed-Solomon (RS) coded and multiple symbol interleaved real-time orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signals transmission over a single mode fiber (SMF)-based direct-detection optical system. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time to realize the forward error correction (FEC) in real-time optical OFDM systems. The bit error rate (BER) performances of RS-coded OFDM signals are investigated in a low-cost directly modulated laser-based direct-detection optical transmission system. The experimental results show that after 25.26-km SMF-28 transmission of the real-time RS-coded and symbol interleaved optical OFDM signals, a post-FEC BER less than 1 × 10^-8} is successfully achieved by using RS code with 7% overhead for a pre-FEC BER of 1 × 10^-3.