Performance analysis of non-directed equalized indoor optical wireless systems

Indoor optical wireless systems provide an attractive alternative for realizing next generation wireless local area networks (WLANs). In this paper, the potential of non-directed, equalized optical wireless systems is investigated, taking into account the indoor channel impulse response and the characteristics of ambient light noise and thermal noise at the receiver. Two modulation schemes, pulse-position-modulation and on-off keying, are combined with appropriate equalization methods in order to examine the capacity limits of non-directed infrared wireless systems. It is shown that the various non-directed configurations can provide data rates of the order of 100 Mb/s and beyond, over a medium sized room.