Demonstration of 20 Mbps LED Ultraviolet-C Communication over Medium Distance with Photon Receiver

Motivated by optical covert communication that can support both line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenario, we demonstrate the possiblilty of the high data rate communication using deep ultraviolet (UV) light emitting-diode (LED). Both the LOS and NLOS UV communication links over realistic distances have been built. In LOS communication, we transmit data at rate from 2.5 Mbps to 20 Mbps in distances of 10 meters, 20 meters, and 30 meters. While in NLOS communication experiment, we test the channel over 6 meters at the reflection angle of 90 degree, which is reflected by different solid materials. The transmitter adopts On-Off Keying (OOK) modulation, and the receiver part consists of a photomultiplier tube (PMT) and an oscilloscope. We process data on a computer in an offline manner, where supporting vector machine-based approach for signal detection is adopted. The experimental results show that in the LOS condition, the UV LED can provide stable communication at symbol rate 20 Mbps with bit-error rate (BER) below 2%in distance of 20 meters. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the UV photons can be reflected by smooth solid material at 90 degree where symbol rate 10 Mbps with BER below 2%can be achieved.