Low-Complexity and Low-Power Receiver for Solar-Cell-Based Optical Communications

This paper presents a low-power and low-complexity data receiver circuit suitable for solar-cell-based optical receivers. The receiver circuit is based on a data slicer that has been modified to work while directly tied to a solar cell as the photo-transducer element. The receiver circuit uses a first-order RC high-pass filter to remove the solar cell’s DC voltage induced by ambient light and a comparator along with a voltage-averaging circuit to extract digital waveforms. A circuit analysis and experimental results are presented. The power consumption of the presented implementation of the receiver circuit is 6.28 μW and during tests, it achieved error-free transmission at a speed of 133 bps at a distance of 30 cm. This receiver circuit could be used as a wake-up receiver for solar-powered wireless devices or to transmit low-bandwidth command messages in visible-light optical communication applications.