Experimental Analysis Combining Radio-over-Fiber and Power-over-Fiber with Distributed Amplification for Different Link Lengths

A Power-over-Fiber (PoF) system provides a power supply, over an optical fiber, to a remote electrical equipment. A Radio over Fiber (RoF) system is basically the transmission of Radio Frequency signals (RF) over optical fiber. Combining PoF with RoF allows a fully photonic link to supply remote sensors, while transmitting RF signals. A single optical fiber is deployed to both transmit the exchanged data and the energy to supply the remote instrument. This work presents an overview of the optical and RF performances of a system that combines PoF and RoF with a focus on experimental results. It presents both advantages and limitations of this approach and should serve as a guide to which applications may benefit from the concept.