High Data-Rate Infra-Red Optical Wireless Communications: implementation Challenges

Achieving high data-rates in optical wireless involves theoretical limits and practical constraints. In this paper, the authors discuss these, with reference to two system examples. A 1.25 Gigabit/s demonstrator that has been fabricated as part of the European Community Framework 7 project OMEGA is described, and a 280Mbit/s demonstrator that is currently under development as part of the same project. In each case the compromises required, and implementation issues are discussed. High data rate optical wireless systems are challenging to design and implement in the infra-red region of the optical spectrum.