This paper investigates based on laboratory experiments the multiuser interference suppression effect of the coherent adaptive antenna array diversity (CAAAD) receiver employing an optical fiber feeder in the intermediate frequency (IF) stage, aiming at the practical use of adaptive antenna array beam forming techniques based on the W-CDMA air interface. We employed a configuration in which the optical fiber conversion, i.e., electrical-to-optical (E/O) conversion (vice versa (O/E)), is performed on a received signal amplified by an automatic gain control (AGC) amplifier in the IF stage, to abate the impact of the noise component generated by the E/O (O/E) converters. We first show by computer simulation the superiority of the optical fiber conversion in the IF stage to that in the radio frequency (RF) stage based on the achievable bit error rate (BER) performance. Furthermore, experimental results elucidate that the loss in the required transmit signal energy per bit-to-background noise power spectrum density ratio (Eb/N0) of the implemented CAAAD receiver at the average BER of 10-3 employing the optical fiber feeders in the IF stage compared to that with coaxial cables is within a mere 0.2 dB (six antennas, three users, two-path Rayleigh fading channel model, and the ratio of the target signal energy per bit-to-interference power spectrum density ratio (Eb/I0) of the desired user to that of the interfering users for fast transmission power control (TPC) is ΔEb/I0=-15 dB).

In this paper, we propose to use graded-index multimode fibers (GI-MMFs) with Fabry-Perot laser diodes (FP-LDs) for short-span and low-cost feeders. The multimode fiber feeders can be applied to wireless personal communication systems where the required feeder length is within several hundred meters, such as distributed antenna networks for microcellular systems or wireless LANs. The use of multimode fibers makes fiber coupling and connection easier, and has the potential to greatly reduce total system cost. Three types of GI-MMFs are considered as transmission media, (1) silica-based glass optical fiber (GI-GOF),(2) silica-core plastic-clad fiber (GI-PCF), and (3) all-plastic optical fiber (GI-POF). It is shown that GI-GOF and GI-PCF are suitable for use as feeders in the microcells of CDMA cellular and wireless LAN systems within 300m in length. GI-POF is estimated to be suitable for use as feeders in wireless LANs within 100m in length. A multimode fiber feeder with FP-LDs and GI-PCF of 300 m is developed in order to demonstrate its applicability to a wireless LAN system operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band.