LiDAR integrated IR OWC system with the abilities of user localization and high-speed data transmission
Zhi Li, Yicong Li, Zihan Zang, Yaqi Han, Lican Wu, Mutong Li, Qian Li, H. Y. Fu
Abstract
By using narrow infrared (IR) optical beams, optical wireless communication (OWC) system can realize ultra-high capacity and high-privacy data transmission. However, due to the point-to-point connection approach, a high accuracy localization system and beam-steering antenna (BSA) are required to steer the signal beam to user terminals. In this paper, we proposed an indoor beam-steering IR OWC system with high accuracy and calibration-free localization ability by employing a coaxial frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system. In the meantime, benefitting from the mm-level ranging accuracy of the LiDAR system, a useful approach to assess the feasibility of the link alignment between beam-steering antenna and users is first demonstrated. With the assistance of the LiDAR system, we experimentally achieved the localization of user terminals with a 0.038-degree localization accuracy and on-off keying (OOK) downlink error-free transmission of 17 Gb/s in free space at a 3-m distance is demonstrated. The highest transmission data rate under the forward error correction (FEC) criterion (Bit error rate (BER) <3.8×10 3 ) can reach 24 Gb/s.