Performance analysis of optical wireless communication system using pulse width modulation

Optical wireless communication has emerged as a promising complementary technology for Radio Frequency technology. Reliability and survivability of solid state lighting devices has attracted researchers and is gaining attention as they provide synergistically illumination and communication. Furthermore optical wireless communication is environmental friendly and also helps in energy conservation. In this paper various parameters for visible light and infrared link such as link accuracy, noise immunity have been studied. A simple algorithm has been described for localization and tracking for a full duplex optical wireless communication system.

I. Background

Use of light as a source of communication perhaps starts with human evolution. Igniting the fire to gain the attention of the natives and building light houses for ship navigation system are the typical examples which testify the use of light as a mode of communication since ages. Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) using Infrared (IR) was proposed in the late 1970s and during the 1990s Infrared Wireless Communication (IrWC) received considerate attention. Using LED as a source of voice and data communication history is not very long and is given in the following Table 1.