Optical wireless communication (OWC) is a promising technology for future
wireless communications owing to its potentials for cost-effective network
deployment and high data rate. There are several implementation issues in the
OWC which have not been encountered in radio frequency wireless communications.
First, practical OWC transmitters need an illumination control on color,
intensity, and luminance, etc., which poses complicated modulation design
challenges. Furthermore, signal-dependent properties of optical channels raise
non-trivial challenges both in modulation and demodulation of the optical
signals. To tackle such difficulties, deep learning (DL) technologies can be
applied for optical wireless transceiver design. This article addresses recent
efforts on DL-based OWC system designs. A DL framework for emerging image
sensor communication is proposed and its feasibility is verified by simulation.
Finally, technical challenges and implementation issues for the DL-based
optical wireless technology are discussed.Comment: To appear in IEEE Communications Magazine, Special Issue on
Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Wireless Communication