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Enrico Forestieri

Publications and source records attributed to Enrico Forestieri.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Performance Optimization of Short Reach Optical Interconnects based on Direct Detection

Short-reach optical interconnects are evolving toward data rates beyond 400 Gb/s per lane, driven by the bandwidth and energy-efficiency requirements of AI-enabled datacenter networks. At these operating speeds, channel impairments, device nonlinearities, and hardware constraints limit the effectiveness of conventional transceiver design and digital signal processing (DSP). This paper presents a unified framework for the optimization of direct-detection optical interconnects, encompassing digital surrogate modeling, receiver-side DSP optimization, and end-to-end (E2E) transceiver learning. The proposed formulation provides a common perspective for model-based and machine-learning-based approaches, including linear and nonlinear equalization, lookup tables, decision trees, neural-network receivers, and E2E optimization. Their performance is discussed together with computational complexity and hardware implementation aspects, highlighting the associated trade-offs. We show, through simulations and experimental validations, that for a 40~Gb/s 10~km link, decision trees can outperform by 0.5--1~dB conventional linear equalization, with negligible hardware requirements. Moreover, we show that an E2E technique based on transformers can provide a gain up to 6~dB, highlighting the potential of joint transceiver optimization to improve the performance of next-generation short-reach optical links.

physics.optics↗
arXiv2026

Nonlinearity Compensation for Coherent Optical Satellite Communications

Optical satellite uplinks rely on high-power optical amplifiers (HPOAs) to overcome free-space attenuation and enable long-distance transmission. However, at high power levels, fiber Kerr nonlinearity becomes significant and degrades system performance. In this work, we develop a realistic model for optical uplinks that accounts for nonlinear effects and analyze their impact, highlighting key differences from conventional longhaul fiber systems. We then introduce low-complexity digital signal processing techniques for nonlinearity compensation, based on constellation shaping via a look-up table (LUT) and a simple nonlinear phase rotation applied at the transmitter and/or receiver. The LUT also enables adaptive rate tuning according to channel conditions, enhancing robustness against link variations. Simulation results show that the proposed techniques increase the maximum acceptable link loss by up to 6 dB with negligible complexity. Finally, we show that, at the system level, propagation in the HPOA can be modeled as a simple nonlinear phase rotation, equivalent to propagation in a zero-dispersion noiseless fiber link, and fully characterized by a single parameter - the characteristic nonlinear power.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2026

Discrete-modulation continuous-variable quantum key distribution with probabilistic amplitude shaping over a linear quantum channel

The practical implementation difficulties arising from the Gaussian modulation of the GG02 protocol lead us to investigate the possibilities offered by the combination of probabilistic amplitude shaping technique and quadrature amplitude modulation formats in the context of continuous variable quantum key distribution systems. Our interest comes from the fact that quadrature amplitude modulation and probabilistic shaping can be implemented with current technologies and are widely used in classical telecom equipment. In this treatment, we assume to work in the scenario of a linear quantum channel and we analyze maximum achievable secure key rates, maximum reachable distances and the resilience to noise of our discrete-modulation based protocol with respect to GG02, which is taken as a benchmark. In particular, we deal with the infinite key size regime, consider a homodyne detection scheme, and analyze what happens for different cardinalities of the input alphabet at different distances, in the case of collective attacks and in the reverse reconciliation picture. We find that our protocol, beyond being easily reproducible in the laboratory, provides a way to closely approach the theoretical performance offered by GG02 and, at the same time, preserves the ability to assure an unconditional security level.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2025

Fiber Nonlinearity Mitigation in Coherent Optical Systems

Fiber nonlinearity represents a critical challenge to the capacity enhancement of modern optical communication systems. In recent years, significant research efforts have focused on mitigating its impact through two complementary approaches. On the one hand, researchers have investigated practical digital signal processing (DSP) techniques to mitigate or compensate for nonlinear impairments, such as reversing fiber propagation effects through digital backpropagation (DBP). However, the high computational complexity of these techniques often discourages their practical implementation. On the other hand, information-theoretic studies have sought to establish the capacity limits of the nonlinear optical fiber channel, providing a framework for evaluating the ultimate performance of existing optical networks and guiding the design of next-generation systems. This work reviews recent advances and proposes future directions for nonlinearity compensation and mitigation, including constellation shaping techniques and low-complexity DBP. Furthermore, it highlights the potential of these innovations both in advancing the theoretical understanding of fiber capacity limits and in enabling practical DSP implementations.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2024

A New Twist on Low-Complexity Digital Backpropagation

This work proposes a novel low-complexity digital backpropagation (DBP) method, with the goal of optimizing the trade-off between backpropagation accuracy and complexity. The method combines a split step Fourier method (SSFM)-like structure with a simplified logarithmic perturbation method to obtain a high accuracy with a small number of DBP steps. Subband processing and asymmetric steps with optimized splitting ratio are also employed to further reduce the number of steps required to achieve a prescribed performance. The first part of the manuscript is dedicated to the derivation of a simplified logarithmic-perturbation model for the propagation of signal in an optical fiber, which serves for the development of the proposed coupled-band enhanced split step Fourier method (CB-ESSFM) and for the analytical calculation of the model coefficients. Next, the manuscript presents a DSP algorithm for the implementation of DBP based on a discrete-time version of the model and an overlap-and-save processing strategy. Practical approaches for the optimization of the coefficients used in the algorithm and of the splitting ratio of the asymmetric steps are also discussed. A detailed analysis of the computational complexity is presented. Finally, the performance and complexity of the proposed DBP method are investigated through simulations. In a five-channel 100 GHz-spaced wavelength division multiplexing system over a 15x80 km single-mode-fiber link, the proposed CB-ESSFM achieves a gain of about 1dB over simple dispersion compensation with only 15 steps (corresponding to 681 real multiplications per 2D symbol), with an improvement of 0.9 dB over conventional SSFM and almost 0.4dB over our previously proposed ESSFM. Significant gains and improvements are obtained also at lower complexity. A similar analysis is performed also for longer links, confirming the good performance of the proposed method.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2024

Coupled-Band ESSFM for Low-Complexity DBP

We propose a novel digital backpropagation (DBP) technique that combines perturbation theory, subband processing, and splitting ratio optimization. We obtain 0.23 dB, 0.47 dB, or 0.91 dB gains w.r.t. dispersion compensation with only 74, 161, or 681 real multiplications/2D-symbol, improving significantly on existing DBP techniques.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2024

Sequence-Selection-Based Constellation Shaping for Nonlinear Channels

Probabilistic shaping is a pragmatic approach to improve the performance of coherent optical fiber communication systems. In the nonlinear regime, the advantages offered by probabilistic shaping might increase thanks to the opportunity to obtain an additional nonlinear shaping gain. Unfortunately, the optimization of conventional shaping techniques, such as probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS), yields a relevant nonlinear shaping gain only in scenarios of limited practical interest. In this manuscript we use sequence selection to investigate the potential, opportunities, and challenges offered by probabilistic shaping for nonlinear channels. First, we show that ideal sequence selection is able to provide up to 0.13 bit/s/Hz gain with respect to PAS with an optimized blocklength. However, this additional gain is obtained only if the selection metric accounts for the signs of the symbols: they must be known to compute the selection metric, but there is no need to shape them. Furthermore, we show that the selection depends in a non-critical way on the symbol rate and link length: the sequences selected for a certain scenario still provide a relevant gain if these are modified. Then, we analyze and compare several practical implementations of sequence selection by taking into account interaction with forward error correction (FEC) and complexity. Overall, the single block and the multi block FEC-independent bit scrambling are the best options, with a gain up to 0.08 bit/s/Hz. The main challenge and limitation to their practical implementation remains the evaluation of the metric, whose complexity is currently too high. Finally, we show that the nonlinear shaping gain provided by sequence selection persists when carrier phase recovery is included.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2023

Probabilistic amplitude shaping for continuous-variable quantum key distribution with discrete modulation over a wiretap channel

To achieve the maximum information transfer and face a possible eavesdropper, the samples transmitted in continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) protocols are to be drawn from a continuous Gaussian distribution. As a matter of fact, in practical implementations the transmitter has a finite (power) dynamics and the Gaussian sampling can be only approximated. This requires the quantum protocols to operate at small powers. In this paper, we show that a suitable probabilistic amplitude shaping of a finite set of symbols allows to approximate at will the optimal channel capacity also for increasing average powers. We investigate the feasibility of this approach in the framework of CV-QKD, propose a protocol employing discrete quadrature amplitude modulation assisted with probabilistic amplitude shaping, and we perform the key generation rate analysis assuming a wiretap channel and lossless homodyne detection.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2023

On the Nonlinear Shaping Gain with Probabilistic Shaping and Carrier Phase Recovery

The performance of different probabilistic amplitude shaping (PAS) techniques in the nonlinear regime is investigated, highlighting its dependence on the PAS block length and the interaction with carrier phase recovery (CPR). Different PAS implementations are considered, based on different distribution matching (DM) techniques-namely, sphere shaping, shell mapping with different number of shells, and constant composition DM-and amplitude-to-symbol maps. When CPR is not included, PAS with optimal block length provides a nonlinear shaping gain with respect to a linearly optimized PAS (with infinite block length); among the considered DM techniques, the largest gain is obtained with sphere shaping. On the other hand, the nonlinear shaping gain becomes smaller, or completely vanishes, when CPR is included, meaning that in this case all the considered implementations achieve a similar performance for a sufficiently long block length. Similar results are obtained in different link configurations (1x180km, 15x80km, and 27x80km single-mode-fiber links), and also including laser phase noise, except when in-line dispersion compensation is used. Furthermore, we define a new metric, the nonlinear phase noise (NPN) metric, which is based on the frequency resolved logarithmic perturbation models and explains the interaction of CPR and PAS. We show that the NPN metric is highly correlated with the performance of the system. Our results suggest that, in general, the optimization of PAS in the nonlinear regime should always account for the presence of a CPR algorithm. In this case, the reduction of the rate loss (obtained by using sphere shaping and increasing the DM block length) turns out to be more important than the mitigation of the nonlinear phase noise (obtained by using constant-energy DMs and reducing the block length), the latter being already granted by the CPR algorithm.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2021

New Lower Bounds on the Capacity of Optical Fiber Channels via Optimized Shaping and Detection

Constellation shaping is a practical and effective technique to improve the performance and the rate adaptivity of optical communication systems. In principle, it could also be used to mitigate the impact of nonlinear effects, possibly increasing the information rate beyond the current limit dictated by fiber nonlinearity. However, this appealing idea is frustrated by the difficulty of designing an effective shaping strategy that takes into account the nonlinearity and long memory of the fiber channel, as well as the possible interplay with other nonlinearity mitigation strategies. As a result, only little progress has been made so far, while the optimal shaping distribution and the ultimate channel capacity remain unknown. In this work, we describe a novel technique to optimize the shaping distribution in a very general setting and high-dimensional space. For a simplified block-memoryless nonlinear optical channel, the capacity lower bound obtained by the proposed technique can be expressed analytically, establishing the conditions for an unbounded growth of capacity with power. In a more realistic scenario, the technique can be implemented by a rejection sampling algorithm driven by a suitable cost function, and the corresponding achievable information rate estimated numerically. The combination of the proposed technique with an improved (non-Gaussian) decoding metric yields a new capacity lower bound for the dual-polarization WDM channel.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2018

Nonlinearity Mitigation in WDM Systems: Models, Strategies, and Achievable Rates

After reviewing models and mitigation strategies for interchannel nonlinear interference (NLI), we focus on the frequency-resolved logarithmic perturbation model to study the coherence properties of NLI. Based on this study, we devise an NLI mitigation strategy which exploits the synergic effect of phase and polarization noise compensation (PPN) and subcarrier multiplexing with symbol-rate optimization. This synergy persists even for high-order modulation alphabets and Gaussian symbols. A particle method for the computation of the resulting achievable information rate and spectral efficiency (SE) is presented and employed to lower-bound the channel capacity. The dependence of the SE on the link length, amplifier spacing, and presence or absence of inline dispersion compensation is studied. Single-polarization and dual-polarization scenarios with either independent or joint processing of the two polarizations are considered. Numerical results show that, in links with ideal distributed amplification, an SE gain of about 1 bit/s/Hz/polarization can be obtained (or, in alternative, the system reach can be doubled at a given SE) with respect to single-carrier systems without PPN mitigation. The gain is lower with lumped amplification, increases with the number of spans, decreases with the span length, and is further reduced by in-line dispersion compensation. For instance, considering a dispersion-unmanaged link with lumped amplification and an amplifier spacing of 60 km, the SE after 80 spans can be be increased from 4.5 to 4.8 bit/s/Hz/polarization, or the reach raised up to 100 spans (+25%) for a fixed SE.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2018

Improved Detection Strategies for Nonlinear Frequency-Division Multiplexing

Two novel detection strategies for nonlinear Fourier transform-based transmission schemes are proposed. We show, through numerical simulations, that both strategies achieve a good performance improvement (up to 3 dB and 5 dB) with respect to conventional detection, respectively without or only moderately increasing the computational complexity of the receiver.

cs.IT↗
arXiv2018

Decision-Feedback Detection Strategy for Nonlinear Frequency-Division Multiplexing

By exploiting a causality property of the nonlinear Fourier transform, a novel decision-feedback detection strategy for nonlinear frequency-division multiplexing (NFDM) systems is introduced. The performance of the proposed strategy is investigated both by simulations and by theoretical bounds and approximations, showing that it achieves a considerable performance improvement compared to previously adopted techniques in terms of Q-factor. The obtained improvement demonstrates that, by tailoring the detection strategy to the peculiar properties of the nonlinear Fourier transform, it is possible to boost the performance of NFDM systems and overcome current limitations imposed by the use of more conventional detection techniques suitable for the linear regime.

cs.IT↗