Polarization division multiplexing (PDM) has been
proposed as a scheme for increasing data rates in fiber optic communication
systems. In the PDM scheme, the use of two orthogonal
polarizations as alternative data paths is a promising approach
in terms of doubling the information rate relative to conventional
schemes. However, due to the severe distortion caused by the
propagation medium, especially the Polarization mode dispersion
(PMD), the development of receiver compensation methods are
critical for the deployment of PDM based transceivers. This article
proposes a receiver compensation method for high symbol rate
fiber optic communication links, where the two data streams sent
through orthogonal polarizations are mixed by the fiber channel
not only in space but also in time. The proposed receiver algorithm
adaptively recovers the original pair of data streams from their
space-time mixtures. We also provide simulation results for an
end-to-end fiber communication link to illustrate the performance
of the proposed approach.
