Construction and generation of OCDMA code families using a complete row-wise orthogonal pairs algorithm

Abstract A new code construction algorithm for incoherent Multi-Dimensional Optical Code Division Multiple Access (MD-OCDMA) for asynchronous fiber optic communication is proposed. We refer multi-dimensionality to two-dimensional (2D) wavelength–time or space–time domains and three-dimensional (3D) space–wavelength–time domains. The application of the algorithm in constructing 2D multiple pulses per row codes and 3D multiple pulses per plane codes is given. The performance of the codes is discussed. In the applications discussed, this construction ensures a maximum crosscorrelation of 1 between any two codes. The proposed codes have complete 1D code allocation, which increases the cardinality. The performance of some codes in literature is compared with the proposed codes. The analyzed performance measure is bit error rate due to multiple access interference for different numbers of active users. The performance analysis shows that the proposed 2D construction offers very low bit error rate at lower spectral efficiency when compared with other 2D constructions. A comparison of the proposed 3D construction with existing 3D constructions shows lower bit error rate for equivalent code dimension. New integrated optic designs for the generation of OCDMA codes using titanium indiffused lithium niobate technology are explored, which can enable compact encoders and decoders for computer communications.