Non-coherent detection for ultraviolet communications with inter-symbol interference

Ultraviolet communication (UVC) serves as a promising supplement to share the responsibility for the overloads in conventional wireless communication systems. One challenge for UVC lies in inter-symbol-interference (ISI), which combined with the ambient noise, contaminates the received signals and thereby deteriorates the communication accuracy. Existing coherent signal detection schemes (e.g. maximum likelihood sequence detection, MLSD) require channel state information (CSI) to compensate the channel ISI effect, thereby falling into either a long overhead and large computational complexity, or poor CSI acquisition that further hinders the detection performance. Non-coherent schemes for UVC, although capable of reducing the complexity, cannot provide high detection accuracy in the face of ISI. In this work, we propose a novel non-coherent paradigm via the exploration of the UV signal features that are insensitive to the ISI. By optimally weighting and combining the extracted features to minimize the bit error rate (BER), the optimally-weighted non-coherent detection (OWNCD) is proposed, which converts the signal detection with ISI into a binary detection framework with a heuristic decision threshold. As such, the proposed OWNCD avoids the complex CSI estimation and guarantees the detection accuracy. Compared to the state-of-the-art MLSD in the cases of static and time-varying CSI, the proposed OWNCD can gain ∼1 dB and 8 dB in signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) at the 7% overhead FEC limit (BER of 4.5×10 −3 , respectively, and can also reduce the computational complexity by 4 order of magnitud

Optical Wireless Data Center Networks

Bandwidth and computation-intensive Big Data applications in disciplines like social media, bio- and nano-informatics, Internet-of-Things (IoT), and real-time analytics, are pushing existing access and core (backbone) networks as well as Data Center Networks (DCNs) to their limits. Next generation DCNs must support continuously increasing network traffic while satisfying minimum performance requirements of latency, reliability, flexibility and scalability. Therefore, a larger number of cables (i.e., copper-cables and fiber optics) may be required in conventional wired DCNs. In addition to limiting the possible topologies, large number of cables may result into design and development problems related to wire ducting and maintenance, heat dissipation, and power consumption. To address the cabling complexity in wired DCNs, we propose OWCells, a class of optical wireless cellular data center network architectures in which fixed line of sight (LOS) optical wireless communication (OWC) links are used to connect the racks arranged in regular polygonal topologies. We present the OWCell DCN architecture, develop its theoretical underpinnings, and investigate routing protocols and OWC transceiver design. To realize a fully wireless DCN, servers in racks must also be connected using OWC links. There is, however, a difficulty of connecting multiple adjacent network components, such as servers in a rack, using point-to-point LOS links. To overcome this problem, we propose and validate the feasibility of an FSO-Bus to connect multiple adjacent network components using NLOS point-to-point OWC links. Finally, to complete the design of the OWC transceiver, we develop a new class of strictly and rearrangeably non-blocking multicast optical switches in which multicast is performed efficiently at the physical optical (lower) layer rather than upper layers (e.g., application layer). Advisors: Jitender S. Deogun and Dennis R. Alexande

Effects of Transceiver Jitter on the Performance of Optical Scattering Communication Systems

In ultraviolet communications, the transceiver jitter effects have been ignored in previous studies, which can result in non-negligible performance degradation especially in vibration states or in mobile scenes. To address this issue, we model the relationship between the received power and transceiver jitter by making use of a moment-based density function approximation method. Based on this relationship, we incorporate the transceiver jitter effects in combination with Poisson distribution. The error rate results are obtained assuming on-off key modulation with optimal threshold based detection. We validate the error rate expressions by comparing the analytical results with Monte-Carlo simulation results. The results show that the transceiver jitter effects cause performance degradation especially in smaller transceiver elevation angles or in shorter distances, which are often adopted in short-range ultraviolet communications. The results also show that larger elevation angle cases have a better performance with respect to anti-jitter and may perform better compared to smaller elevation angle situations in the case of larger standard deviation of jitter. This work studies for the first time the transceiver jitter effects in ultraviolet communications and provides guidelines for experimental system design.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, comments are welcome

Single-scatter channel impulse response model of non-line-of-sight ultraviolet communications

Previous studies on the temporal characteristics of single-scatter transmission in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) ultraviolet communications (UVC) were based on the prolate-spheroidal coordinate system. In this work, a novel single-scatter channel impulse response (CIR) model is proposed in the spherical coordinate system, which is more natural and comprehensible than the prolate-spheroidal coordinate system in practical applications. Additionally, the results of the widely accepted Monte-Carlo (MC)-based channel model of NLOS UVC are provided to verify the proposed single-scatter CIR model. Results indicate that the computational time costed by the proposed single-scatter CIR model is decreased to less than 0.7% of the MC-based one with comparable accuracy in assessing the temporal characteristics of NLOS UVC channels.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure