Controlled alignment imaging optical MIMO communication system based on light spot detection of arrayed light sources

Abstract

Visible light communication (VLC) technology has become one of the potential key technologies for 6 G due to its unique features, such as abundant license-free spectrum, high confidentiality, and low electromagnetic interference. In this paper, an optical multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system based on imaging reception is proposed, which can improve the data transmission rate and reduce interference between different sub-channels. To overcome the problem of optical communication link alignment, in this paper, we established an imaging optical MIMO communication system with a controlled light source array (CLSA) and proposed an optical alignment strategy to address the alignment issue. The scheme decouples the constraint that the light spot cannot be aligned with the detector in the communication system under the influence of optical parameters. Based on the light spot detection CLSA module, the communication system can ensure the stability of the link alignment when the communication distance changes. Experimental results show that when the communication distance is 20-80 m, the bit error rate (BER) of the communication system remains below 10-6. The single-channel communication rate of the system is 5 Mbps, and the total communication rate is 20 Mbps through the four-channel rate multiplexing. Moreover, if the communication distance increases to the range of 80-100 m, the BER increases, but it is always lower than the forward error correction (FEC) threshold.