Neighbor Discovery in a Multi-Transceiver Free-Space-Optical Ad Hoc Network

In this paper, we present a novel neighbor discovery method for a wireless ad hoc network where each node is equipped with a Free-Space-Optical (FSO) transceivers capable of electronic beam switching. Directional neighbor discovery can be very challenging due to the requirement of strict line-of-sight (LOS) alignment and can result in long and impractical discovery time if the nodes in the network do not have prior information about each other’s location. Our method guarantees that a node can discover all of its neighbors within one 360
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FSO beam sweep. We present a preliminary prototype of a FSO transceiver module capable of electronic beam steering. Through experiments using the developed prototype, we demonstrate that the proposed method helps in discovering neighbor nodes with minimal delay.