Ultrahigh-capacity optical-wireless communication using 2D gratings for steering and decoding of DPSK signals

We demonstrate the use of a 2D-gratings beam-steering device also as a demodulator for multiple differentially-encoded optical-wireless signals. Using this novel concept, ~2bits/sec/Hz spectral-efficiency was achieved without any change in the system compared to on-off-keying

Fully passive user localisation for beam-steered high-capacity optical wireless communication system

Accurate device localisation within the 10cm pico-cell resolution of a 2D beam-steered optical wireless communication system is achieved by applying a large matrix of miniature corner-cube retro-reflectors. No power-consuming elements are needed at the receiver. Real-time transfer of multiple 10GbE video streams has been demonstrated

Accurate indoor localization for beam-steered OWC system using optical camera

Using a low-cost optical camera, we demonstrated an accurate and fast localization technique for ultra-high capacity beam-steered optical wireless communication. Multiple user devices have been localized simultaneously within 25ms for less than 5mm accuracy at a reach beyond 3m

High-capacity symmetric dynamic indoor optical wireless communication equipped with user localization

We report on a novel all-optical system for ultra-high capacity indoor wireless communication with centralized light sources. Using optical cross-connect and reflective modulator photonic chips, bidirectional dynamic indoor wireless networks equipped with localization and tracking functionalities are realized. This novel system allows us to harvest the ultimate bandwidth of optical communication in the wireless domain in a more cost/energy efficient manner. Bidirectional transmission capacities in excess of 40 Gb/s per user are demonstrated experimentally

Ultra-high capacity wireless communication enabled by photonic technologies

Recent research activities in optically-supported wireless communication and their prospects for meeting the explosively growing demand for wireless connectivity will be discussed, including dynamic radio pico-cell network architectures, optically-controlled radio beam steering, spatial division multiplexed OAM radio channels, and ultra-high capacity beam-steered optical wireless communication

Fully passive user localization for beam-steered high-capacity optical wireless communication system

By means of narrow infrared beams very high capacity wireless links can be set up to users individually, while also offering high privacy and high energy efficiency. Accurate device localization for steering the beams is required. This has been achieved within the 10cm pico-cell resolution of a 2D beamsteered optical wireless communication system by applying a matrix of miniature corner-cube retro-reflectors. The localization process is self-calibrating, and does not need power-consuming elements at the receiver. In an indoor laboratory system setup, real-time transfer of multiple 10GbE high-definition video streams has been demonstrated

Bidirectional Gigabits Per Second Spatial Diversity Link Using POF for Passive Optical Front-Ends

This paper presents a novel concept for spatial diversity using plastic optical fibre (POF)-based luminaire transmission for in-home networks. We show the feasibility of an optical transmission system using POFs, acting as optical front-haul, for realizing a high capacity wireless bidirectional link aided by a spatial diversity scheme allowing user mobility around the access points. The light coming out of the 1 mm core diameter step-index POF is highly divergent and, therefore, for each POF-end an optical lens is placed to adjust the size of wireless cells, in order to allow user's mobility or to adjust the number of users served by the access points. Thus, the access points are completely passive, hence no electrical powering is needed, resulting in low maintenance. In addition, active components such as light sources and detectors can be located remotely from the access points and they are connected to each other by POFs. Futhermore, we performed optical wireless experiments with an eye-safe visible light laser and therefore our wireless link is limited to 1.2 m and 45 cm diameter of coverage areas. We obtained multi-Gbps for downlink and uplink and compared the link performance using discrete multitone, pulse amplitude modulation, and Nyquist sub-carrier modulation

Multi-Gigabits per Second Spatial Multiplexing Transmission Using Passive OFE and WDM-over-POF

Indoor networks should be simple and enable multi-Gbps wireless links at low costs. Spatial multiplexing links from multiple optical access points using WDM-over-POF feeder and passive optical front ends are presented. Using discrete multitone on two colours we can double the throughput to 5.2 Gbps

Ultra-high-capacity wireless communication by means of steered narrow optical beams

The optical spectrum offers great opportunities to resolve the congestion in radio-based communication, aggravated by the booming demand for wireless connectivity. High-speed infrared optical components in the 1500 nm window have reached high levels of sophistication and are extensively used already in fibre-optic networks. Moreover, infrared light beyond 1400 nm is eye-safe and is not noticeable by the users. Deploying steerable narrow infrared beams, wireless links with huge capacity can be established to users individually, at minimum power consumption levels and at very high levels of privacy. Fully passive diffractive optical modules can handle many beams individually and accurately steer narrow beams two-dimensionally by just remotely tuning the wavelength of each beam. The system design aspects are discussed, encompassing the beam-steering transmitter, wide field-of-view optical receiver and the localization of the user’s wireless devices. Prototype system demonstrators are reported, capable of supporting up to 128 beams carrying up to 112 Gbit s−1 per beam. Hybrid bidirectional systems which use a high-speed downstream optical link and an upstream radio link at a lower speed can provide powerful asymmetric wireless connections. All-optical bidirectional beam-steered wireless communication will be able to offer the ultimate in wireless capacity to the user while minimizing power consumption. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Optical wireless communication’

Feasibility Study of Optical Wireless Technology in Data Center Network

We investigate the scalability and performance of a novel optical wireless data center network (OW-DCN) based on passive diffractive optics and fast tunable transmitters. The proposed OW-DCN architecture consists of two parallel inter- and intra- cluster networks to implement a flat communication between the top of racks within the DCN with at most two hops. The proposed DCN operation, the transmission performance and the scalability have been experimentally demonstrated and assessed for different modulation formats (NRZ-OOK and PAM4) with different sizes of DCN. A DCN with 8×8 racks shows 20Gbit/s OOK error free transmission with a power penalty of only 1dB compared to the B2B performance. For a 16×16 racks DCN, experiment indicates 16Gbit/s PAM4 transmission at FEC-limit of BER<2×10−3 . Moreover, scalability investigations of the proposed DCN architecture with optimized passive optics indicate that a 32×32 racks DCN with spectral band around 1 nm per link is feasible