MIMO Technology for Optical Wireless Communications using LED Arrays and Fly‐Eye Receivers

This chapter investigates the application of multiple‐input and multiple‐output (MIMO) technology for indoor optical wireless communications (OWC). MIMO approaches can improve indoor OWC performance through two mechanisms: one is sending the same data on all MIMO channels to improve communication reliability called as diversity, and the other is sending different data on different MIMO channels to increase channel capacity, called as multiplexing. In practice, multiple sources are generally implemented by LED arrays. The LED sources are in close proximity to each other and can be driven by the same driver. The chapter shows the simulation of the BER performance of the MIMO equal gain combining (EGC), and the MIMO maximal ratio combining (MRC) spatial diversity systems, and compares them with the non‐MIMO system. Fly‐eye receivers are expected to view various directions simultaneously. The most straightforward design of fly‐eye receivers is employing distributed eyes with their own lens and photo detectors.