An Introduction to Optical Wireless Mobile Communication

Harald Haas · Mohamed Sufyan Islim · Cheng Chen · Hanaa Abumarshoud

Sep 2021 · Artech House

About this ebook

The use of the optical spectrum for wireless communications has gained significant interest in recent years. Applications range from low-rate simplex transmission links using existing embedded CMOS cameras in smartphones, referred to as optical camera communications (OCC), mobile light fidelity (LiFi) networking in homes, offices, urban and sub-sea environments to free-space gigabit interconnects in data centers and point-to-point long-range wireless backhaul links outdoors and in space. This exciting book focuses on the use of optical wireless communications (OWC) for mobile use cases.

The book discusses existing conventional radio frequency (RF)-based wireless access technology and presents the challenges that can impact the requirements of the future wave of new wireless services in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) driven autonomous systems and machine-type communications. The relationship between visible light communications (VLC) and light fidelity (LiFi), is explored, and the major advantages of VLC and LiFi such as security and data density, and discuss existing research challenges are also introduced.

Channel modeling techniques are provided for mobile multiuser scenarios, and will introduce key building blocks to achieve LiFi cellular networks achieving orders of magnitude improvements of area spectral efficiency compared to state-of-the-art. Challenges that arise from moving from a static point-to-point visible light link to a LiFi network that is capable of serving hundreds of mobile and fixed nodes are discussed. An overview of recent standardization activities and the commercialization challenges of this disruptive technology is also provided.

About the author

Harald Haas is a Distinguished Professor of Mobile Communications at the University of Strathclyde and the Director of the LiFi Research and Development Centre. He also set-up and co-founded pureLiFi Ltd and serves as Chief Scientific Officer. He received his Ph.D. degree from The University of Edinburgh. He has authored over 550 conference and journal papers and is an IEEE Fellow.

Mohamed Sufyan Islim is a Post-doctoral Research Associate at the LiFi Research and Development Centre, University of Strathclyde. He received his PhD in digital communications from The University of Edinburgh. He has co-authored 14 conference papers, 16 journal papers, 2 book chapters and 2 pending patents.

Cheng Chen is a Research Associate with the Li-Fi Research and Development Centre, the University of Strathclyde. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Edinburgh.

Hanaa Abumarshoud is a Research Associate at the LiFi Research and Development Centre at the University of Strathclyde. She received her MSc and PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Khalifa University.