Abstract

Fiber-optic transmission systems consist of three fundamental components: a light source with a driving circuit; an optical fiber as the transmission medium: and a photodetector followed by a receiver circuit. Combined with fiber-optic circuits such as multi/demultiplexer, switch, and splitter, the system could extend its functional variety. This tutorial gives, with some case studies, the basic design philosophy in the selection of system features: use of analog/digital transmission and/or WDM; bit rate; wavelength; and repeater spacing. They change over a wide range according to the application areas, for example, trunk transmission in a public network, visual surveillance systems for car-traffic control, submarine transmission, subscriber systems, and local area network. Some topics on a 1.6-Gb/s high-capacity transmission system, which is about to be Introduced into a commercial network, and on a fiber-optic subscriber system are introduced to give participants a future perspective of ultrahigh-speed transmission technology for trunk transmission systems and of single-mode fiber and digital transmission technologies for subscriber systems, respectively.

© 1987 Optical Society of America