Neural Network based Transceiver for
Non-Coherent OFDM Optical Modulation
Asmaa Ibrahim*, Ahmed Elsheikh**, Ahmed M. Abdelsalam ***, Josep Prat**Department of Signal Theory and Communications Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC),
Barcelona, Spain**Faculty of Engineering. Cairo university, Giza, Egypt***Egypt-Japan University, Cairo, Egypt
Asmaa.ibrahim@ upc.edu, ahmed.elsheikh@eng.cu.edu.eg, ahmed.abdelsalam@ejust.edu.eg, josep.prat@upc.edu

Abstract—Optical wireless and radio front-haul communication systems are deemed as potential technologies to the radio
frequency wireless communications in several applications. Consequently, the clipped non-coherent optical modulation techniques
have gained significant attention. The trade-off between the spectral efficiency and the power efficiency of the benchmark
techniques such as asymmetrical clipping optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM) and direct clipping optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM), pose achallenge of maintaining enhanced spectral and power efficiency for the design of the optical modulation techniques. In this paper,
we propose a deep neural network (DNN) based optical transceiver. It uses simple but efficient DNN to predict the clipped negative
parts of the transmitted signal at the receiver side. We evaluate and analyze several DNN-based optical transceiver architectures fordifferent performance aspects. The DNN-based optical OFDM transceiver enhances the spectral and power efficiency compared to
the latest works.
Keywords-ACO-OFDM, DCO-OFDM, Deep neural network, Supervised learning, Optical modulation
Asmaa Ibrahim received the bachelor’s (Hons.) and master’s degrees from Cairo University, Egypt. She is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree with theUniversitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Catalonia, Spain. She was an ESR with CTTC, Barcelona, Spain, in the framework of the Marie-Curie ITN 5GSTEP-FWD Project. She was a Teaching Assistant with AUC, Zewail City, Egypt. Her M.Sc. thesis focused on optimized resource allocation and interference
management techniques in indoor optical communications. She has published number of papers during the M.Sc. studies at the international journal andconference. Her research interests include 5G wireless communication networks, wireless optical communications, and visible light communications.
Ahmed Elsheikh is an assistant professor at the dept. of Mathematics and Engineering Physics, Cairo University. He obtained his PhD from the Industrial
Engineering Dept. University of Montreal. His focus is applied machine learning application and their simplification for practical applications.
Ahmed Abdelsalam is an assistant professor at the Universities of Canada, Egypt. He obtained his PhD from the Software and Computer Engineering
Dept. University of Montreal. His focus is computer architecture, hardware accelerators and deep learning.
Prof. Josep Prat received the M.S. degree in Telecommunications engineering in 1987 and the Ph.D. degree from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya(UPC), Barcelona, in 1995. He is full professor in the Optical Communications Group (www.tsc.upc.edu/gco) of the Signal Theory and Communications
Department of the UPC and coordinates de Optical Access Networks lab. He has mainly investigated on broadband optical communications with emphasis onFTTH access networks and high bit-rate WDM transmission systems. He led the FP7 European project SARDANA (“Scalable Advanced Ring-based passive
Dense Access Network Architecture”) on next-generation FTTH networks, wining the 2011 Global Telecommunications Business Innovation Award in theFixed Network Infrastructure category, and has participated in the international projects COCONUT, ACCORDANCE, Euro-Fos, BONE, ePhoton/One,LION, MEPHISTO, MOON, SONATA and RACE1027, on optical transport and access networks. He was a guest scientist in the University College ofLondon in 1998, and in the Stanford University in 2016; he has been subdirector of the ETSETB Telecom School and member of the Gov ernment Counsel ofUPC; he has published more than 200 international works and edited the books "Fiber-to-the-Home Technologies" and “Next-Generation FTTH Passive
Optical Networks” (Springer Ed.) and has supervised 16 PhD Thesis. He was Associate Editor of the IEEE-PTL and TPC member of OFC, ECOC amongothers.