Abstract:
A cable television system ( 400 ) includes a transmitter ( 200 ) for generating a digital optical signal and a receiver ( 201 ) for receiving such digital optical signal and converting it to an analog signal. The receiver ( 201 ) includes a digital filter ( 300 ) disposed between a deserializer ( 225 ) and a digital-to-analog converter ( 230 ), which digital filter conditions the digital electrical signal received from the deserializer ( 225 ). 1o The digital filter ( 300 ) is employed as a digital noise mitigation block so as to improve the quality of the signals in the reverse path, returning to the cable television system ( 400 ) headend ( 105 ).

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention relates in general to fiber optic communications, and more particularly to optical receivers for use in fiber optic communication systems. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Many communications systems, such as those used to carry cable television signals, typically include a headend section for receiving satellite signals and demodulating the signals to an intermediate frequency (“IF”) or a baseband signal. The baseband or IF signal is then modulated with radio frequency (“RF”) carriers, then combined and converted to an optical signal for transmission from the headend section over fiber optic cable. Optical transmitters are distributed throughout the cable system for splitting and transmitting optical signals, and optical receivers are provided for receiving the optical signals and converting them to RF signals that are further transmitted along branches of the system over coaxial cable rather than fiber optic cable. Various additional devices are disposed in the television system to provide various functions. For example, devices known as taps are situated along the coaxial cable to split off the cable signal directed to the cable system subscribers. Amplifiers and hubs are disposed in the fiber optic system to receive, modify and boost the optical signal for further transmission over the fiber optic cable. 
     While cable systems have traditionally been designed in order to be one-way systems, that is for information to flow from the cable headend to the subscriber&#39;s location, changes in the cable industry have necessitated the ability for information generated at subscriber locations to flow back to the headend. Accordingly, cable systems have recently modified the installed cable plant so as to have not simply a forward path, i.e., information flowing from the headend to the subscriber, but now to include a reverse path to allow information from the subscriber to flow back to the headend. Examples of information that would flow in the reverse path would include data relating to status monitoring of the subscriber device, subscriber payper-view program selections, cable modem information, and two-way video and telephony services. The need for information flowing from the subscriber back to the headend is anticipated to increase as cable television systems continue to add two-way interactive services, such as e-mail and web browsing. 
     In order to facilitate the easy flow of information in the forward and reverse paths, the cable system has divided the available spectrum into forward path and reverse path portions. Accordingly, information transmitted from the headend to the subscriber is typically in the frequency range of between approximately 50 megahertz (“MHz”) and 750 MHz. Conversely, information transmitted in the reverse path is typically in the frequency range from between about 5 MHz and 40 MHz. Various factors influence the ability to accurately transmit and receive optical signals within a cable television system. As the length of fiber optic cable within a system increases, for example, signal losses also increase. Further, temperature fluctuations which cause variation in the optical modulation index of the optical transmitter can result in variation of the RF output level of the optical receiver. Signal distortions may also be caused by non-linearities in the optical transmitter laser and photo diode of the optical receiver. Finally, many of the devices interposed in the forward and reverse paths themselves introduce noise and other distortions into the system. Accordingly, in many instances the range of the particular system in question is limited both in terms of distance and bandwidth capability. 
     Although these problems may be mitigated by employing expensive techniques, e.g., decreasing fiber length between optical nodes, such techniques may prohibitively increase costs to both subscribers and service providers. Accordingly, there exists a need for more reliable and accurate transmission of optical signals within a cable communications system. In particular, improved optical signal reliability and accuracy in reverse path transmissions is critically needed. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a cable television system in accordance with the instant invention; 
     FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an optical transmitter coupled to an optical receiver included in the cable television system of FIG. 1, in accordance with the instant invention; 
     FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a digital filter, in accordance with the instant invention; and 
     FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a cable television system having multiple outputs to subscriber regions in accordance with the instant invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
     While the specification concludes with claims defining the features of the invention that are regarded as novel, it is believed that the invention will be better understood from a consideration of the following description in conjunction with the drawing figures, in which like reference numerals are carried forward. 
     Referring now to FIG. 1 there is illustrated therein a communication system, such as a cable television system  100  having both forward and reverse paths, i.e., having the ability to communicate downstream in the forward direction and upstream in the reverse direction. The cable television system  100  includes a headend  105  for receiving satellite signals that are demodulated to baseband or an intermediate frequency (“IF”). The baseband signal is then converted to cable television signals that are routed throughout the system  100  to subscriber equipment  130 , such as settop decoders, televisions, or computers, located in the residences or offices of system subscribers. The headend  105  may, for example, convert the baseband signal to an optical signal that is transmitted over fiber optic cable  110 , in which case a remotely located optical node  115  converts the optical signal to an electrical radio frequency (“RF”) signal for further transmission through the system  100  over coaxial cable  120 . Taps  125  located along the cable  120  and various points in the distribution system split off portions of the RF signal for routing to subscriber equipment  130  coupled to subscriber drops provided at the taps  125 . 
     As noted above, the system  100  may also have reverse transmission capability so that signals, such as data, video or voice signals, generated by the subscriber equipment  130  can be provided back to the headend  105  for processing. The reverse signals travel through the taps  125  and any nodes  115  and other system equipment, e.g., reverse amplifiers, to the headend  105 . In the configuration shown in FIG. 1, RF signals generated by the subscriber equipment  130  travel to the node  115  which converts the RF signals to optical signals for transmission over the fiber optic cable  110  to the headend  105 . 
     Referring now to FIG. 2 there is illustrated therein a digital optical transmitter  200  and a digital optic receiver  201  adapted for use in the system  100  of FIG.  1 . In particular, the transmitter  200  and receiver  201  are adapted to transmit digital optical signals to the headend  105  in the reverse direction. The digital optical transmitter  200  may, for example, be included within the optical node  115 , although other locations within the cable television system  100  may also include the digital  15  optical transmitter  200 . The transmitter  200  receives at an input  202  an analog information signal that is representative of one or more reverse RF signals from the subscriber equipment  130 . As is noted above, information transmitted in the reverse path is typically in the range of between 5 and 40 MHz RF. At its output  204  the transmitter  200  provides a digital optical signal that is generated in accordance with the analog information signal. The digital optical signal is transmitted over the fiber optic cable  110  to the receiver  201  and the headend  105 . The transmitter may also provide an optical pilot tone that serves to provide a reference level during processing at the headend  105  as is described in commonly assigned, co-pending patent application Ser. No. 09/169,612 filed Oct. 9, 1998 and entitled “Digital Optical Transmitter” to Farhan, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. 
     More particularly, the digital optical transmitter  200  includes an analog-to-digital converter (“ADC”)  205  for converting the analog input to a digital signal, i.e., a digital word comprising of a particular number of bits, in a conventional manner. The resolution of the ADC  205  of course is dependent upon transmitter design parameters. The transmitter  200  may also include a parallel-to-serial (“P/S”) converter or serializer  210  which receives inputs from the ADC  205  and other components, and converts inputs to a serial bit stream. An optical transmitter  215 , such as for example a laser diode, is then driven to generate an optical signal in accordance with the serial bit stream. It will be appreciated that a serializer such as serializer  210  may also include a driver for driving the laser diode of the optical transmitter  215  and frame and coding circuitry for encoding the serialized digital signal into frames of data. The output signal at output  204  is then transmitted along the optical fiber  110  to digital optical receiver  201 . 
     The receiver  201  may be, for instance, located in the headend  105 , or other locations such as any intervening nodes or hubs may likewise employ the receiver  201 . The receiver  201  includes a detector  220  such as a photo diode for receiving the digital optical signal transmitted over fiber optic cable  110  and generating therefrom a serial stream of electrical pulses in accordance with the optical signal. The output signals provided by the detector  220  are coupled to a serial-to-parallel (“S/P”) converter or deserializer  225  for generating therefrom a set of parallel outputs corresponding to a digital word. The receiver  201  further includes a digital-to-analog converter (“DAC”)  230  for converting the signal provided at its digital input to an analog signal in a manner well known in the art. The signal output at output  232  of receiver  201  is an RF signal in the range of 5 to 40 MHz. The receiver  201  further includes a generalized digital filter  300  coupled between deserializer  225  and DAC  230 . 
     Referring now to FIG. 3 there is illustrated therein the generalized digital filter  300  employed in receiver  201  in FIG.  2 . The generalized digital filter may include one or more filter devices adapted to filter the signal output by deserializer  225  according to one or more filtering criteria. Accordingly, the generalized digital filter  300  may include a first filter device including one or a plurality of filters for filtering according to a first criteria. In this embodiment, a first filter  310  may include one or a plurality of digital bandpass filters, each bandpass filter adapted to filter different spatial portions of the digital electrical signal output from deserializer  225 . In such an embodiment, a series of digital bandpass filters, for example bandpass filters  312 ,  314 , and  316  filter different portions of the RF input signal. Accordingly, for a desired pass band of 7-15, 20-27 and 30-40 MHz (or rejection of bands 5-6, 16-20 and 28-30 MHz) bandpass filter  318  may filter signals above and below the range of, for instance, 7-15 MHz; digital bandpass filter  314  would filter out signals below 20 and above 27 MHz; and digital bandpass filter  316  would filter out signals below 30 and above 40 MHz. The filter signals are then fed to the DAC in appropriately filtered condition and returned to the headend. 
     Additionally, or alternatively, the generalized digital filter  300  may include one or a plurality of adaptive estimation filters adapted to receive the digital electrical signal generated by deserializer  225  and passing it along to the DAC  230 . In such an embodiment, the adaptive estimation filter may include but a single or, as with respect to filter  310 , a plurality of estimation filters such as filters  320 , 322  and  324 . The bank of adaptive estimation filters  318  may be, for example Kalman filters, or linear predictive filters, in which the incoming signal is digitally tuned to the desired passband. A more practical approach would be to require filters  310  to perform decimation and spectral relocation to between 0 and “B” MHz where “B” is an optimized bandwidth where all filters  318  can function. “B” could be for example 6 MHz. The advantage of using adaptive estimation filters  318  is to estimate or pass the desired signal within a known passband, whereas the bandpass filters  310  simply pass the passband and reject the out of band signal. Thus the filters  310  are deterministic filters that do not depend upon passband statistics. Filters  318  however are statistical filters that adaptively learn or train themselves based on passband statistics. 
     In yet another embodiment of the digital filter  300  of the receiver  201 , the digital bandpass filters  310  may be combined with the adaptive estimation filters  318 . Accordingly, the digital electrical signal output from deserializer  225  is filtered according to at least two criteria, first criteria provided by the filter  310 , and the second criteria provided by filter  318 . In this embodiment, the first filter filters according to, for example, different spectral portions of the digital electrical signal. Thereafter, a plurality of adaptive estimation filters, such as those described herein above, are coupled to the plurality of digital bandpass filters, so that there is a corresponding one adaptive estimation filter for each one digital bandpass filter. Accordingly, particular spectral portions of the RF signal are filtered out by the digital bandpass filters, and then are passed to the adaptive estimation filters for further filtering and conditioning. Such an implementation has been found to be very effective in rejecting out-of-band interferences, and inband interference rejection has been shown to be particularly effectively treated by the combination of the bandpass filter and estimation filters. 
     Referring now to FIG. 4, a modified cable system  400  is depicted. The system  400  includes a headend  105  for generating cable television signals that are split off to subscriber equipment  130  by taps  125 . However, in the system  400  the optical node  415  splits off the downstream cable signal for transmission to multiple distribution systems  430  and  435  or branches. Each branch typically provides service to subscribers located in different geographic regions. Upstream reverse signals provided by subscriber equipment  130  in the different branches  435  is transmitted in the form of analog RF signals to the optical node  415 , which combines the signals for further upstream transmission in the form of an optical signal. According to the present invention, the upstream signals from the different branches may be converted to digital optical signals in a manner that minimizes or eliminates many of the problems associated with prior art cable television systems. 
     While the preferred embodiments of the invention have been illustrated and described, it will be clear that the invention is not so limited. Numerous modifications, changes, variations, substitutions and equivalents will occur to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.