Massively Distributed Antenna Systems With Nonideal Optical Fiber Fronthauls: A Promising Technology for 6G Wireless Communication Systems

Employing massively distributed antennas brings radio access points (RAPs) closer to users, thus enables aggressive spectrum reuse that can bridge gaps between the scarce spectrum resource and extremely high connection densities in future wireless systems. Examples include cloud radio access network (C-RAN), ultra-dense network (UDN), and cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. These systems are usually designed in the form of fiber-wireless communications (FWC), where distributed antennas or RAPs are connected to a central unit (CU) through optical front-hauls. A large number of densely deployed antennas or RAPs requires an extensive infrastructure of optical front-hauls. Consequently, the cost, complexity, and power consumption of the network of optical front-hauls may dominate the performance of the entire system. This article provides an overview and outlook on the architecture, modeling, design, and performance of massively distributed antenna systems with non-ideal optical front-hauls. Complex interactions between optical front-hauls and wireless access links require optimum designs across the optical and wireless domains by jointly exploiting their unique characteristics. It is demonstrated that systems with analog radio-frequency-over-fiber (RFoF) links outperform their baseband-over-fiber (BBoF) or intermediate-frequency-over-fiber (IFoF) counterparts for systems with shorter fiber length and more RAPs, which are all desired properties for future wireless communication systems.