Terabit optical wireless systems

The continued exponential growth in mobile traffic created a need for new technologies that are able to provide communication efficiently at parts of the spectrum other than the RF spectrum currently in use. A potential disruptive solution is optical wireless (OW) communication. OW offers over three orders of magnitude more bandwidth than RF, with about 540 THz of spectrum. It is the best choice of spectrum beyond millimeter waves, where unlike the THz spectrum (the other possible choice), OW avoids complex sources and detectors and has good indoor channel conditions.

A Terabit Bidirectional Multi-user Optical Wireless System (TOWS) uses new concepts in cellular optical communications to develop offer capacities at least two orders of magnitude higher than the current planned 5G optical and radio wireless systems, with a roadmap to wireless systems that can offer up to four orders of magnitude higher capacity. The high aggregate capacities to be provided by TOWS requires a comprehensive networking infrastructure to support the management and sharing of these capacities to meet future wireless applications.

This project will focus on optimizing the networking infrastructure recognising the importance of a number of key optimisation metrics , including capacity, delay sensitivity, resilience, fairness, cost effectiveness and energy consumption, and key constraints such as eye safety, heat dissipation in devices and ease of installation and use.