Modulus mean square-based blind hybrid modulation format recognition for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-based elastic optical networking

Abstract This paper proposes and experimentally validates a simple and blind hybrid modulation format recognition (MFR) scheme based on the modulus mean square (MMS) of signal for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-based elastic optical networking (OFDM-EON). According to features of various modulation format with different MMS values, this scheme is designed to recognize the modulation formats of sub-carriers by setting appropriate threshold values. Moreover, the proposed blind hybrid MFR scheme demonstrates independency of phase noise and frequency offset, and has a small amount of computation and does not require pilots. When the sub-carrier’s modulation format of the OFDM-EON system is selected separately from (QPSK, 8QAM), (QPSK, 16QAM), (QPSK, 32QAM), (QPSK, 64QAM), (8QAM, 64QAM), (16QAM, 64QAM), (32QAM, 64QAM), (QPSK, 8QAM, 64QAM), (QPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM) and (QPSK, 32QAM, 64QAM), the simulation results show that in order to achieve 100% recognition of the system sub-carrier’s modulation format, the system needs optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) are 20dB, 26dB, 23dB, 18dB, 23dB, 27dB, 24dB, 27dB, 26dB, 27dB, respectively. Finally, we also verify the effectiveness of the recognition algorithm by an experimental system.