Space division multiplexing (SDM) exploiting spatial diversity to increase transmission capacity has been a hot research topic for photonics society over the past decade. From fiber innovation such as coupled-core fiber to petabit-per-second transmission over a single optical fiber, emerging SDM technologies start to make both academia and industry rethink about device design and system architecture.

In this workshop, we discuss the enabling space division multiplexing technologies of fibers, amplification, devices, transmission and system.

As networks continue to grow in scale and performance, they face increasingly complex challenges and must constantly push the boundaries of technology to evolve. The IEEE International Network Generation Roadmap (INGR), a part of the IEEE Future Networks Initiative, was created to develop a 10-year roadmap for wireless networks. Recently, the INGR has been expanded to include optical networks, including x-haul networks such as fronthaul, mid-haul, and backhaul. X-haul networks are a critical component of the next generation mobile networks, forming the fabric of interconnections between radio units, distributed units, and central units.

As the density of cells and the bandwidth offered by these cells increase, future X-haul networks will face increasingly stringent requirements for delay, bandwidth, energy efficiency, latency, synchronization, and deployment flexibility and scalability. To meet these demands, a variety of transport technologies, including dark fiber, WDM, gray optics, and TDM-PON, will be critical.

This workshop will explore the current state, future challenges, and potential solutions of X-haul networks, including optical transceivers, transport, synchronization, PON with CO-DBA/CTI, and other relevant topics.