Wireless optical communication in illumination systems

Abstract

Electric lighting is pervasive and with LED lighting the ability arises to modulate light. This paper will address some challenges in using illumination products for Optical Wireless Communication (OWC). Electronic LED drivers are going through extreme cost down and have to adhere to efficiency and other requirements that are not easily compatible with OWC. This paper also validates the use of traditional water pouring for OWC channels in which the transmit power consumed for modulation is a nonlinear function of the emitted energy per communication bit.