Free space optics (Optical Wireless Communications)

S. Rajbhandari
Optical Communications Research Group, School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences, Northumbria University, UK http://soe.northumbria.ac.uk/ocr/
Sujan.rajbhandari@northumbria.ac.uk

History of Optical Communication

Alexander Graham Bell 1878 more than 25 years before Reginald Fessenden did the same thing with radio1.

Diagram of photophone from Bell paper 1

Development of LASER in 60s, optical fibre and semiconductor has made the modern communication possible. The modern era of indoor wireless optical communications was proposed in 1979 by F.R. Gfeller and U. Bapst 2. In fact it was the first LAN proposed using any medium.
1

Alexander Graham BELL, American Journal of Sciences, Third Series, vol. XX, no.118, Oct. 1880, pp. 305- 324. 2 F. R. Gfeller and U. Bapst, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 67, pp. 1474- 1486, 1979.

History of OWC
800BC 150BC 1880 Fire beacons (ancient Greeks and Romans) Smoke signals (American Indians) Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the photophone1 1st FSO (THE GENESIS)

1960s 1970s 1979 1993 2003 2008 2009

Invention of laser (revolutionized FSO), and optical fibre FSO mainly used in secure military applications Indoor OWM systems F R Gfeller and G Bapst Open standard for IR data commun. The Infrared Data Association The Visible Light Communications Consortium (VLCC) Japan hOME Gigabit Access (OMEGA) Project EU - Develop global
standards for home networking (infrared and VLC technologies).

IEEE802.15.7 - Call for Contributions on IEEE802.15.7 VLC.

Access Network Bottleneck

LAST MILE

54 Mbps/100 Mbps/GbE

TeraGig Bandwidth

Corporate LAN Universities Hospitals Businesses

Long Haul Fibre Network

Bandwidth hungry applications 100M/GbE LANS HDTV

Access Network Bottleneck

2.5G 10G
Metro Edge Metro Network

Sufficient bandwidth on most routes DWDM used to upgrade congested routes

Abundant capacity Falling bandwidth price

RF Bandwidth Congestions

Access Network Technologies

Bandwidth

10 Gbps

FREE SPACE OPTICS

1 Gbps

FTTH

100 Mbps

DSL

UWB LMDS

10 Mbps

1 Mbps

DSL PLC
50 m 500 m 1 km 2 km 5 km +

Distance from metro fibre route

OWC: Overview
light beams (visible and infrared) propagated through the free space.
Typical optical wireless system components

Optical transmitter - Light Emitting Diodes (LED) - Laser Diodes (LD) Optical receiver - p-i-n Photodiodes. - Avalanche Photodiodes Links - Line-of-sight(LOS) - Non-LOS - Hybrid
1

Optical wireless connectivity 1

M. Kavehrad, Scientific American Magazine, July 2007, pp. 82-87.

OWS

Source: T. Lftner, "Edge Position Modulation for Wireless Infrared Communications," PhD thesis, Friedrich-Alexander University, 2005.

Comparison with RF
Property Bandwidth regulated Passes through walls Multipath fading Multipath dispersion Path loss Dominant noise Average power proportional to Radio Yes Yes Yes Yes High Other users Infrared Implication for IR No Approval not required world-wide compatibility No No Yes Inherently secure carrier reuse in adjacent rooms. Simple link design Problematic at high data rates

High BackgroundShort range f(t)is the input signal with high peak-average radio

What OWC offers

Abundance bandwidth High data rate License free operation High Directivity small cell size can support multiple devices within a room Free from electromagnetic interference suitable for hospital and library environment. cannot penetrate opaque surface like wall Spatial confinement Secure data transmission Compatible with optical fibre (last mile bottle neck?) Low cost of deployment Quick to deploy Small size, low cost component and low power consumptions. Simple transceiver design. No multipath fading

Applications

Send signal

Send and receive reflection Sensors / IR viewer

Source: Internet

Simple

EN0630 Optical Communications System Design Dr. Hoa Le Minh

Applications

Controlling & signalling

Mobile communications

Functional

Source: Internet

OWC- Applications
Other applications include: Disaster recovery Fibre communications backup Video conferencing Links in difficult terrains Intelligent transport system (car-tocar Communications, ground-totrain communications)

Last Mile Connectivity

Hospitals Multi-campus University

Optical Wireless Communications

OWC

Indoor

Outdoor

VLC - Broadcasting - LOS/Diffuse (3-4m, 100Mbps)

IR - Short range communications - Device to device - Wireless hotspot (4m, ~1Gbps)

VLC

IR

- Free space optics - Traffic light - Car-to-car (2-3km, > 1Gbps) communications (low speed)

Classification of Indoor OWC Links

LOS Links
Rx Narrow low power transmit beam Narrow field-of-view receiver
Advantages Least path loss No multipath propagation High data rate Suitable to point-to-point communications only. Problems Noise is limiting factor Possibility of blocking/shadowing Tracking necessary No/limited mobility

Tx

Diffuse Links
Use multiple reflections of the optical beam on surrounding surfaces such as ceilings, walls, and furniture. transmitter and receiver not necessarily directed one towards the other.
Robust to blocking and shadowing Allows roaming Problems: High path loss. Multiple paths (reflections) - Result in inter-symbol interference (ISI). High power penalty due to ISI. Limited bandwidth- Due to large capacitance of the large area detectors

Tx

Rx

Geometry LOS propagation model

Transmitter

d c Receiver

Propagation types and definitions

Definitions Input
Transmitter parameters
Average optical power transmitted (Pt) Half power angle () Lamberts mode number (ml)

Receiver parameters

Field Of View (FOV), Receiver effective area (Aeff) Receiver sensitivity (R)

Output
Average optical received power (Pr) Geometrical attenuation Channel gain, H(0) Link Margin

Optical Parameters
Average optical power:

Signal-to-noise-ratio:

DC channel gain:

LOS/WLOS link margin analysis

The channel gain (response at null frequency) is:

d : distance transmitter/receiver : semi-angle of transmission : semi-angle of reception Pt : transmitted power

Geometrical attenuation in dB:

Average optical received power Pr:

Link margin Ml:

Challenges (Indoor)
Challenges
Power limitation

Causes
Eye and skin safety.

(Possible ) Solutions
Power efficient modulation techniques, holographic diffuser, transreceiver at 1500ns band

Noise Intersymbol interference (ISI) No/Limited mobility Shadowing Blocking Limited data rate

Intense ambient light (artificial/ natural) Multipath propagation (non-LOS links) Beam confined to small area. LOS links Large area photodetectors LOS links

Optical and electrical band pass filters, Error control codes Equalization, Multi-Beam Transmitter Wide angle optical transmitter , MIMO transceiver. Diffuse links/ Cellular System/ wide angle optical transmitter
Bandwidth-efficient modulation techniques /Multiple small area photo-detector.

Strict link set-up

Diffuse links/ wide angle transmitter

Safety Classifications - Point Source Emitter

Issue1: Eye- safety

Infrared communication currently in market works in two wavelengths: 800 nm and 1550 nm. At 800 nm (near infrared), light passed though cornea and lens and focus on to the retina. Invisible light no blinking reflex. Retina has no pain sensor permanent eye-damage could occur. Infrared transceivers should conform to class 1, a few W,(inherently safe) of the IEC 825 standard. The eye safety limit is a function of the viewing time, wavelength and apparent size of the optical source. Class 3B laser can be used by passing the beam through a hologram. 1550 nm is relatively safe as the wavelength is absorbed by the cornea and lens. However, the cheap trans-receiver optical devices available in market are in 800 nm band.

Eye- safety- Possible Solutions

Adopt to 1500 nm band (expensive solution) Power efficient baseband modulation techniques like pulse position modulation. Retransmission scheme and error control code . Power efficiency is also important factor for battery powered optical wireless gadgets as the power consumption needs to be minimised. Combining power efficient modulation scheme with the error control code can be optimum solution.

Issue 2: Artificial Light Interference (ALI)

Optical power spectra of common ambient infrared sources. Spectra have been scaled to have the same maximum value.

ALI-Possible Solutions
Differential receiver1 Differential optical filtering2 Electrical high pass filter3,4 Polarisers 5 Angle diversity receiver 6,7 Discrete wavelet transform based denoising8,9
1 J. 2

R. Barry, PhD Dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1992 A.J.C Moreira, R. T. Valadas, A. M. De Oliveira Duarte, Optical Free Space Communication Links, IEE Colloquium on , vol., no., pp.5/1-510, 19 Feb 1996. 3 R. Narasimhan, M. D. Audeh, and J. M. Kahn, IEE Proceedings - Optoelectronics, vol. 143, pp. 347-354, 1996. 4 A. R. Hayes, Z. Ghassemlooy , N. L. Seed, and R. McLaughlin, IEE Proceedings - Optoelectronics vol. 147, pp. 295300, 2000. 5S. Lee, Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, vol. 40, pp. 228-230, 2004. 6R. T. Valadas, A. M. R. Tavares, and A. M. Duarte, International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, vol. 4, pp. 275-288, 1997 . 7J. M. Kahn, P. Djahani, A. G. Weisbin, K. T. Beh, A. P. Tang, and R. You, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 36, pp. 88-94, 1998. 8 S. Rajbhandari; Z. Ghassemlooy; and M. Angelova, IJEEE, Vol. 5, no. 2 ,pp102-111. 2009. 9 S. Rajbhandari; Z. Ghassemlooy; and M. Angelova, Journal of Lightwave Technology, on print.

Issue 3: Multipath induced ISI

Diffuse Links offers
Robustness to blocking and shadowing Allows roaming Avoid complex alignment and tracking between transmitter and receiver Challenges For most surfaces, the light wave is diffusely reflected (as from a matter surface) rather than specularly reflected (as from a mirrored surface). Pulse spreading beyond symbol duration. High inter-symbol interference (ISI). Low data rate and high power penalty.
1 0.8 Amplitude 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0 0.05 0.1 Time (S) 0.15 0.2 Transmitted singal Received signal

Channel Model and Performance without an Equalizer

Characterised by Channel impulse response h(t). Developed by Carruthers and Kahn1.
6(0.1D h (t ) = rms )6 )7 u (t )

(t + 0.1D

rms

where u(t) is the unit step function and Drms RMS delay spread. Normalized delay spread,
D = T D rms

Ts

Ts : bit duration.

The normalized optical power requirement for the unequalized system increases exponentially with increasing delay spread. Modulation techniques having shorter pulse duration show higher power penalties. It is practically impossible to achieve a reasonable BER at DT > 0.5 for OOK system.
1J.

B. Carruthers and J. M. Kahn, IEEE Transaction on Communication, vol. 45, pp. 1260-1268, 1997.

Reported Working Systems

Long Distance Systems

Common Baseband Digital Modulation Techniques

OOK
Simple to implement High average power requirement Suitable for Bit Rate greater tha 30Mb/s Performance detoreaites at higher bit rates PPM Complex to implement Lower average power requirement Higher transmission bandwidth Requires symbol and slot synchronisation

DPIM
Higher average power requirement compared with PPM Higher throughput Built in symbol synchronisation Performance midway between PPM and OOK.

DH-PIM

The highest symbol throughput Lower transmission bandwidth than PPM and DPIM Built in symbol synchronisation Higher average power requirement compared with PPM and DPIM. Complex decoder