Steerable pencil beams for multi-Gbps indoor optical wireless communication

We report a novel optical wireless communication (OWC) system solution that supports multi-Gbps (Gigabit-per-second) capacity for indoors. Narrow beams, termed as pencil beams, are directed to wireless users using a tunable laser and a passive diffractive optical element. This enables a wide coverage of ultra-high-capacity communication links to serve multiple network users simultaneously. Experimental results demonstrating data rates of up to 10 Gbps, with on–off keying modulation format, over a distance of more than 2.5 m, are reported. Error-free links beam-steered over a total wavelength range of 130 nm, with steering angle of 17.16°, have been achieved. This system is proposed for short-range OWC and is promising for seamless integration in in-building optical networks. © 2014 Optical Society of Americ

Free-space transmission with passive 2D beam steering for multi-gigabit-per-second per-beam indoor optical wireless networks

\u3cp\u3eIn order to circumvent radio spectrum congestion, we propose an innovative system which can provide multiple infrared optical wireless beams simultaneously where each beam supports multi-gigabit-per-second communication. Scalable two-dimensional beam steering by means of wavelength tuning is proposed. A passive beam-steering module constructed with cascaded reflection gratings is designed for simultaneous multi-user coverage. We experimentally characterized the beam-steered system and thoroughly evaluated the performance of steered channels using the spectrally efficient and robust discrete multitone modulation in a bandwidth-limited system deploying 10 GHz telecom transceivers. This study reports the achievement of at least 37 Gbps free-space transmission per beam over a distance of up to 2 m over 5.61° x 12.66° scanning angles.\u3c/p\u3

10 Gbps all-optical full-duplex indoor optical wireless communication with wavelength reuse

In an effort to evolve indoor communication with optical wireless techniques, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an all-optical bidirectional architecture for beam-steered infrared pencil beams with symmetric data rates of up to 10 Gbit/s

Ultra-high capacity indoor optical wireless communication using 2D-steered pencil beams

\u3cp\u3eFree-space indoor optical communication deploying pencil beams can offer ultra-high wireless capacity individually per user device. By means of two-dimensional (2D) diffractive modules, such as a pair of crossed gratings, 2D steering of multiple beams by just tuning the wavelength of each beam can be achieved. The design aspects of an indoor system fed via an intelligent optical fiber backbone network are discussed. 2D angular beam steering over a 6° × 12° area was achieved by wavelength tuning from 1505 to 1630 nm. System experiments using PAM-4 modulation have shown a capacity of 32 Gbit/s per infrared beam. With radio-over-fiber techniques and optical carrier recovery from the downstream signal, 10 Gbit/s upstream transmission of a 60 GHz radio signal has been shown using adaptive DMT modulation.\u3c/p\u3

Low-crosstalk full-duplex all-optical indoor wireless transmission with carrier recovery

We propose and demonstrate a novel bi-directional free-space (FS) optical wireless communication system for indoor wireless networks. A 2-D infrared beam-steered system supporting full-duplex communication of at least 10 Gb/s capacity per wireless terminal with simple NRZ-OOK modulation format is experimentally demonstrated. The uplink (UL) is implemented using the optical carrier recovery technique, in which the downlink (DL) OOK modulation is erased by means of two cascaded SOAs operating in the saturation region. We experimentally demonstrate the system with asymmetric speeds (10 Gb/s DL/2.5 Gb/s UL) and symmetric speeds (10 Gb/s) duplex communication over an FS transmission distance of 3 m. We also report the crosstalk in such a system

High-capacity optical wireless communication using 2-dimensional IR beam steering

\u3cp\u3eBy remotely-controlled 2D steering of multiple infrared beams using wavelength tuning and a compact fully passive AWGR-based module, simultaneous communication at 20Gbit/s OOK per beam is shown. A total throughput capacity of 1.6Tbit/s can be achieved.\u3c/p\u3

36.7 Gbps spectrum-efficient indoor optical wireless system with beam-steering

We propose a novel spectrum-efficient indoor optical wireless solution providing multi- Gigabits-per-second with passive diffractive beam-steering technique and discrete multitone modulation. Diffracted link performance of 36.7 Gbps over more than 2.5 m is reported

PIC-assisted high-capacity dynamic indoor network utilizing optical wireless and 60-GHz radio-over-fiber techniques

\u3cp\u3eWe present a bidirectional dynamic indoor fiber infrastructure using a photonic integrated cross-connect chip for optical wireless downstream and 60GHz radio-over-fiber upstream transmission. We demonstrate 10Gb/s on-off-keying downstream multicasting and 33Gb/s discrete-multi-tone upstream communication.\u3c/p\u3