Deep Neural Network-aided Soft-Demapping in Coherent Optical Systems: Regression versus Classification

Pedro J. Freire, Jaroslaw E. Prilepsky, Yevhenii Osadchuk, Sergei K. Turitsyn, Vahid Aref

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We examine here what type of predictive modelling, classification, or regression, using neural networks (NN), fits better the task of soft-demapping based post-processing in coherent optical communications, where the transmission channel is nonlinear and dispersive. For the first time, we present possible drawbacks in using each type of predictive task in a machine learning context, considering the nonlinear coherent optical channel equalization/soft-demapping problem. We study two types of equalizers based on the feed-forward and recurrent NNs, for several transmission scenarios, in linear and nonlinear regimes of the optical channel. We point out that even though from the information theory perspective the cross-entropy loss (classification) is the most suitable option for our problem, the NN models based on the cross-entropy loss function can severely suffer from learning problems. The latter translates into the fact that regression-based learning is typically superior in terms of delivering higher Q-factor and achievable information rates. In short, we show by empirical evidence that loss functions based on cross-entropy may not be necessarily the most suitable option for training communication systems in practical scenarios when overfitting- and vanishing gradients-related problems come into play.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)7973-7988
JournalIEEE Transactions on Communications
Volume70
Issue number12
Early online date10 Oct 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Keywords

  • Neural networks
  • classification
  • coherent detection
  • digital signal processing
  • nonlinear equalizer
  • optical communications
  • regression

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