Optical Wireless Channel Sounding in a Realistic Environment

Optical wireless communication (OWC) is emerging as a potential technology for next-generation communication systems. However, there are few measurements of the optical channel, which limits the full understanding of the benefits and challenges of the technology. Here, we report the first channel measurements in a realistic environment using a visible laserbased channel sounder. The OWC channel sounder comprises two swept-frequency <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathbf{4 0 5 - n m}$</tex> laser sources and a highly sensitive silicon photomultiplier mounted at the back of a narrow-field-of-view telescope. Channel characteristics in terms of multipath and bandwidth at different elevation and azimuthal angles can be measured for channel bandwidths of up to 900 MHz.