Performance Improvement of OCDMA System Using Optical Normalizer

The need of ultra high speed communication network has encouraged the telecom industry to investigate the hidden potential of Optical Code Division Multiple Access (OCDMA) in LANs. OCDMA is considered as the optimal solution as it provides huge bandwidths as compared to the other existing multiple access systems. However, Multiple Access Interference (MAI) increases with the increase in number of simultaneous users which severely limits the performance of the OCDMA system. MAI can be reduced by using optical hard limiter placed at the front end of the receiver. But the drawback associated with it is that it is not able to handle random signals effectively. To overcome this problem, there is a strong need for the design of new detection scheme that will be proved efficient enough to enhance the performance of the OCDMA system, while reducing the effects of the MAI. A new technique using optical normalizer employing dynamic thresholding is introduced. The performance of system, in terms of BER and Q factor, is compared to the previous technique used to mitigate the effect of MAI.