Performance emulation and parameter estimation for nonlinear fibre-optic links

Fibre-optic communication systems, especially when operating in the nonlinear regime, generally do not perform exactly as theory would predict. A number of methods for data-based evaluation of nonlinear fibre-optic link parameters, both for accurate performance emulation and optimization, are reviewed. In particular, single-step nonlinear impairment based on the Gaussian mixture model, adaptive digital backpropagation, and extension to higher-dimensional spaces using Monte Carlo Markov chains are discussed.