A Joint Algorithm for Photonics-Aided Microwave-Communication System at K-Band

In this letter, a joint algorithm based on look-up table (LUT) and k-means is proposed to compensate the nonlinearity distortion caused by the saturation effect of optical/ electrical devices in a photonics-aided microwave communication system at K-band. Adopting the proposed algorithm, we experimentally realize a delivery of 20-Gb/s single-carrier 16-quadrature amplitude modulation signal over 132-m wireless link and the BER satisfies the hard-decision forward error correction threshold of $3.8\times 10^{-3}$ . Such a joint algorithm can combine the advantages of LUT and k-means at high optical power. Based on the experimental results, the joint algorithm shows obvious superiority compared with the mere use of LUT or k-means in terms of strong saturation.