On the influence of interference in optical PPM telemetry systems

Digital pulse position modulation is an attractive modulation scheme in wireless optical telemetry systems because of its power efficiency. Usually, the bit error rate is assumed to depend solely on the noise level, and the detrimental influence of optical interference is over-looked. In this paper, the limitations of this approach are shown, interference measurements are reported, and models that describe interference are presented. Further, new rules for system design in the presence of interference are derived. It appears that the flicker of incandescent lamps is usually negligible compared to the influence of noise, while the flicker of fluorescent lamps is not.