Adaptive OFDM system for communications over the indoor wireless optical channel

The authors propose an adaptive orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system for communications over the indoor wireless diffuse optical channel. This channel can be characterised as short-term stationary, with severe attenuation and multipath-induced penalty, and high dependence on the space distribution of emitters and receivers. We have chosen OFDM systems because of their capability of supporting high data rates without channel equalisation. They also mitigate the quality of service fluctuations induced when space distribution of emitters and receivers varies. The performance of the new proposed scheme is compared with that of an adaptive system described in a previous work. The obtained results show that a significant increase of the system throughput is attained over noisy wireless optical channels. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2006.