CHRONOS: A Cloud based Hybrid RF-Optical Network Over Synchronous Links

This paper presents CHRONOS, a Cloud based Hybrid RF-Optical Network Over Synchronous Links. The primary goal of this project is to design, build and maintain a multi-node, heterogeneous, wideband, scalable, hybrid and synchronous Cloud Radio Access Network (Cloud RAN or C-RAN), specifically to support emerging applications requiring both THz-optical and conventional sub-6GHz technologies like Wi-Fi and cellular networks. The novelty of the testbed is in enhancing the core capabilities of C-RAN in multiple directions by integrating synchronous RF and Optical links that is not considered for contemporary C-RAN deployments. The long term goal of this project is to utilize the testbed to enable practical research in wireless and optical communication with emphasis on new hardware and software architecture for signal processing. In this paper, we present the design, implementation and initial results of CHRONOS, in an indoor setting, with a clear path to a scalable and real-time network. Our results show synchronous reception across multiple edge nodes while achieving an aggregate bandwidth of 108Mbps using 20MHz OFDM waveform in each RF and optical paths.