Ultra-fast RSOP tracking via 3 pilot tones for short-distance coherent SCM systems.

We propose an algorithm to track the rotation of state of polarization (RSOP) for short-distance coherent subcarrier-multiplexing systems. 3 pilot tones are used to estimate RSOP matrices on a block-by-block basis and recover phase noise as well. An ultra-fast RSOP tracking ability using the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by experiment. Specifically, the bit error rate increases from 2.3×10 to 5.6×10 when the RSOP speed increases from 0 rad/s to 50 Mrad/s. We also demonstrate the robustness of the algorithm against polarization mode dispersion and polarization dependent loss.