Digital Equalization in Ultra-High Capacity Coherent Optical Transmission

In the last decade, optical transmission systems have become heavily reliant on digital signal processing to overcome optical channel impairments. As systems increase in both bandwidth and spectral efficiency, designers must find new algorithms to compensate for a variety of impairments, both optical and electrical. We will discuss the source of these impairments, the algorithms used for compensating them, and the challenges associated with optimizing these algorithms.