Advanced IF-over-Fiber FrontHaul for Distributed MIMO in 6G Networks

Analog transport of IF or RF signals over optical fibre enables seamlessly bridging significant distances between signal generation/detection and processing units and antenna sites, while maintaining excellent signal fidelity. At the same time IFoF or ARoF allow simple, cost and power efficient access points by centralizing digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion steps and signal processing, as well as supporting distribution of shared clock/frequency references from a single central location. This talk discusses the use of analog fibre fronthaul to address the challenges arising with distributed MIMO systems in 6G networks, highlighting the most recent advances and analysing the advantages offered on a distributed system and network level, and furthermore explores possible implementations of shared signal and clock/frequency reference distribution over a single low-complexity infrastructure.