Design Considerations for Sectorization in Bidirectional LiFi Links

The bit rate, power consumption, security and user density achieved by Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) systems can be improved by ensuring that the modulated light is only sent in the direction of the target client device. This paper compares the potential benefits from sectorization at the transmitter versus at the receiver, which turn oput to be very different. A system can perferm well with many transmit sectors but only one or few receive sectors. A mechanism to activate right sector for the outgoing beam without relying on a detector with high angular resolution has not yet been published. We developed a non-mechanical beam control mechanism. It is designed for a bi-directional system. Each sector carries a unique identifier which is used to dynamically control the choice of the emitter sector(s). We optimized the design by minimizing the overhead and signal processing associated with it.