Advances in Optical Wireless Communications and Its Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The transmission capacity and data requirements for wireless communication are exponentially increasing due to the dynamic growth of mobile users and the deployment of the technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) and industry 4.0. Although developments made in radio frequency (RF) technologies have been able to address challenges posed by this unprecedented data growth, the available RF spectrum is rapidly becoming congested to saturation. Therefore, both the academic and commercial sectors have actively begun investigating optical wireless technologies to commercialise them as complementary technologies in different applications. Optical wireless communication that includes visible light communication (VLC) or LiFi and free space optical (FSO) communication has gained tremendous attention in a number of applications such as in smart industries, smart cities, smart transportation, and smart connected buildings/homes and autonomous vehicles. However, there are some significant research challenges within these applications, including achieving high data rates, ubiquitous connectivity, shadowing and co-channel interference effects, different noise mitigations such as turbulence and fog, dimming capabilities, machine-to-machine connectivity, high-speed optical front ends devices for LiFi, and the cost of the systems. In this Special Issue, we will accept papers on advances in optical wireless communications and their applications, including but not limited to the following topics:

• Free-space optical (FSO) communication;
• Visible light communication (VLC)/ LiFi;
• Advanced modulation schemes;
• Optical channel modelling and mitigation techniques;
• Vehicle-to-vehicle communication;
• Error correction coding and equalisation;
• Localisation and positioning;
• Spatial diversity/optical MIMO;
• Optical satellite communication;
• Optical wireless communication for smart cities and medical applications;
• Machine-to-machine communication using optical wireless;
• Hybrid RF/FSO links.

Full-length original technical articles are solicited with novel contributions within the optical communication domain without restriction. Tutorial and survey papers are also welcome.

Dr. Muhammad Ijaz
Dr. David Plets
Dr. Sujan Rajbhandri
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Information is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.