Multicore fiber Applications and TeCHnologies (MATCH) is a doctoral training network funded by the European Commission, under the MSCA Doctoral Networks 2023 | Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and proposed by a multidisciplinary and intersectoral consortium of international experts.       - MATCH directs PhD research toward multicore fibre (MCF) technology;       - MATCH aims at developing leading solution for scaling future optical fibre communication networks towards emerging information capacities, while offering the potential to lower costs, reduce power consumption and significantly boost network capacity by over tenfold;       - MATCH programme outlines a comprehensive set of research and training objectives tailored to 13 doctoral candidates (DCs);       - The cohort of DCs will be hosted by 14 partners (10 from academia and 4 from the industrial sector);       - The planned training activities of DCs include 32 secondments, 7 mini-symposiums, 3 transferable skills workshops, summer schools, and tutorials, among others.     In MATCH program, DCs will acquire expertise in diverse areas, encompassing: (i) Design and fabrication of MCFs with transmission capacities surpassing the state-of-the-art; (ii) Design and implementation of MCF components and subsystems, with a focus on optical amplifiers and switches, multiple frequency comb sources, and parallel-scalable signal processing architectures; (iii) Development and implementation of machine learning techniques for end-to-end performance optimization of MCF networks; (iv) Design and evaluation of coexistence of telecom and non-telecom signals in MCF networks. By engaging the expertise of MATCH academic and industrial partners, DCs will acquire distinct skills and knowledge to transform them to globally-minded scientists and engineers, who will help to shape Europe’s ICT future and societal wellbeing.   For more information see: https://match.iscte-iul.pt/

One major goal in this project is to develop an analytical formulation,as well as a stochastic Monte-Carlo (MC) simulator, that allow us to study in a rigorous way the impact of in-band crosstalk, both incoherent and coherent, originated in CDC ROADMs in the performance of flexible grid networks, considering 16-QAM and 64-QAM 400 Gbps signals.On a network-side perspective, the emergence of modulation formats with higher-order constellations and, consequently, with stricter performance margins has increased the importance of physical impairment awareness in the network planning process. Thus, it is essential to incorporate the effects of in-band crosstalk, along with other effects, in an impairment-aware routing and spectrum assignment (RSA) framework. This framework should be able to efficiently provision paths and spectrum for superchannels based on M-QAM carriers in a CDC-ROADM network, while using the physical model as a performance validation tool for candidate optical paths

Neste projecto, desenvolvem-se e analisam-se modelos para a caracterização estatística dos efeitos da ICXT em MCFs, propõem-se técnicas para a mitigação daqueles efeitos em redes baseadas em MCF, e usam-se aqueles modelos e técnicas no desenvolvimento de algoritmos de encaminhamento e alocação de espectro e núcleo (RSCA) em redes ópticas elásticas (EONs). O projecto foca-se principalmente em estudos de simulação e teóricos sobre a caracterização estatística dos efeitos da ICXT em MCF e sobre técnicas de modulação para mitigação daqueles efeitos em redes baseadas em MCF. Estes estudos são complementados pela realização de demonstrações laboratoriais dos principais resultados de simulação e teóricos. O projecto tira proveito dos conhecimentos de trabalho experimental (em laboratório) e de projecto de sistemas baseados em tecnologia de MCFs do NICT (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japão) combinado com a experiência do IT (Grupo de Comunicações Ópticas do pólo de Lisboa do Instituto de Telecomunicações) na modelação teórica e análise de sistemas e redes de telecomunicações por fibra óptica.

  O objectivo geral deste projecto consiste em demonstrar o novo paradigma associado ao aumento de flexibilidade e granularidade da alocação de capacidade de transmissão em redes ópticas metropolitanas. Particularmente, a utilização de sinais multi-banda (MB) com multiplexagem por divisão ortogonal na frequência (OFDM) de elevado ritmo binário nas redes metropolitanas associada à utilização da técnica de multiplexagem por divisão no comprimento de onda (WDM) é estudada e demonstrada como sendo uma excelente solução para providenciar simultaneamente elevado ritmo binário, elevada flexibilidade de alocação de capacidade, elevada eficiência espectral e a possibilidade de up-grade da rede metropolitana sem alteração significativa da sua arquitectura.

This project is within the optical communication networks area. In particular, in the area that studies the physical constraints in optical networks.One of the most severe limitations in the network physical layer is crosstalk. This phenomenon has its origin, primarily, in the imperfect isolation of optical components, such as optical switches, multiplexers, and demultiplexers, that are key components in the design of an optical node. The type of crosstalk that causes the higher degradation to the system performance is the in-band crosstalk, in which the interfering (crosstalk) signals and the selected signal, despite coming from distinct optical sources, have the same nominal wavelength.The main objectives of this project are:* Develop a formalism to evaluate the impact of in-band crosstalk in optical DQPSK systems.* Evaluate the impact of in-band crosstalk in a DPSK and DQPSK systems when the signal propagates through an optical network. Each optical node is formed by an optical switching architecture, optical amplifiers, optical filters, and possibly wavelength converters. * Implement Monte Carlo (MC) simulation to study the impact of ASE noise and in-band crosstalk on the performance of DPSK and DQPSK systems and confirm the analytical results.* Implement the multicanonical Monte Carlo (MMC) method to simulate the tails of the probability density function of the decision variable and to obtain lower values of the bit error rate (BER) than in the MC standard procedure.* Evaluate by simulation the impact of in-band crosstalk in optical networks with DPSK and DQPSK signals, for a rigorous model of the optical node and validate the analytical tool developed for this case.

Main Objective:i) to propose a streamlined optical access and radio network architecture with extended range, simplified implementation and deployment;ii) to develop combined fibre and radio transmission centralised impairment compensation extending the FTTH range to > 100 km;iii) to enable single, end-to-end management architecture along the FTTH access network of the complete photonic and radio access paths; iv) to provide converger OFDM-baseband, medium-range WiMAX and short-range UWB and cellular LTE on a conventional wavelength division-duplexed (WDD) and a reflective-electroabsorption transceiver (R-EAT) based network architecture;v) to demonstrate the feasible network operation with signals (UWB) in the 60 GHz radio band;vi) to create an open house showroom in order to shown the approach benefits to the general public.