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Recent Advances in Optical Wireless Communications
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Recent Advances in Optical Wireless Communications

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 2383

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Borja Genoves Guzman

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA
Interests: visible light communication (VLC); LiFi systems; Internet of Things; low-power wireless communications; next generation wireless networks; mobile communications
Dr. Maximo Morales-Céspedes

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Signal Theory and Communications, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 30 28911 Leganés, Spain
Interests: optical communication;visible light communication; wireless communications

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The ever-increasing demand for wireless communication services has led to the search for alternatives that can fulfill such demand. Recent progress in solid-state lighting, lasers, and detectors has propelled optical wireless communications (OWCs) to the forefront of future wireless technologies.

This Special Issue entitled “Recent Advances in Optical Wireless Communications” explores this exciting field. We encourage the research community to submit original and unpublished papers falling into the OWC topic, including systems research, development, and applications. Research papers invoking any modality of optical wireless communications are welcome, including free-space optics (FSO), visible light communication (VLC), infrared (IR) communication, and its networked version light fidelity (LiFi).

Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

  • Visible light communication;
  • Infrared communication;
  • Free-space optics;
  • LiFi systems;
  • Vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL)-based LiFi;
  • OWC-based Internet of Things;
  • Optical reflective intelligent surfaces (ORISs);
  • Energy efficiency in OWC;
  • Spectrum efficiency in OWC;
  • Simultaneous lightwave information and power transfer (SLIPT);
  • Passive light communication and sensing;
  • Resource-constrained OWC;
  • Hybrid OWC/RF networks;
  • Underwater optical communications;
  • OWC applications;
  • Industrial applications of OWC.

Dr. Borja Genoves Guzman
Dr. Maximo Morales-Céspedes
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2600 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.

Keywords

  • optical wireless communications
  • free-space optics (FSO)
  • visible light communication (VLC)
  • infrared (IR)
  • communication light fidelity (LiFi)

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 1706 KiB  
Article
Demonstration of 50 Gbps Long-Haul D-Band Radio-over-Fiber System with 2D-Convolutional Neural Network Equalizer for Joint Phase Noise and Nonlinearity Mitigation
by Yachen Jiang, Sicong Xu, Qihang Wang, Jie Zhang, Jingtao Ge, Jingwen Lin, Yuan Ma, Siqi Wang, Zhihang Ou and Wen Zhou
Sensors 2025, 25(12), 3661; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25123661 - 11 Jun 2025
Viewed by 38
Abstract
High demand for 6G wireless has made photonics-aided D-band (110–170 GHz) communication a research priority. Photonics-aided technology integrates optical and wireless communications to boost spectral efficiency and transmission distance. This study presents a Radio-over-Fiber (RoF) communication system utilizing photonics-aided technology for 4600 m [...] Read more.
High demand for 6G wireless has made photonics-aided D-band (110–170 GHz) communication a research priority. Photonics-aided technology integrates optical and wireless communications to boost spectral efficiency and transmission distance. This study presents a Radio-over-Fiber (RoF) communication system utilizing photonics-aided technology for 4600 m long-distance D-band transmission. We successfully show the transmission of a 50 Gbps (25 Gbaud) QPSK signal utilizing a 128.75 GHz carrier frequency. Notwithstanding these encouraging outcomes, RoF systems encounter considerable obstacles, including pronounced nonlinear distortions and phase noise related to laser linewidth. Numerous factors can induce nonlinear impairments, including high-power amplifiers (PAs) in wireless channels, the operational mechanisms of optoelectronic devices (such as electrical amplifiers, modulators, and photodiodes), and elevated optical power levels during fiber transmission. Phase noise (PN) is generated by laser linewidth. Despite the notable advantages of classical Volterra series and deep neural network (DNN) methods in alleviating nonlinear distortion, they display considerable performance limitations in adjusting for phase noise. To address these problems, we propose a novel post-processing approach utilizing a two-dimensional convolutional neural network (2D-CNN). This methodology allows for the extraction of intricate features from data preprocessed using traditional Digital Signal Processing (DSP) techniques, enabling concurrent compensation for phase noise and nonlinear distortions. The 4600 m long-distance D-band transmission experiment demonstrated that the proposed 2D-CNN post-processing method achieved a Bit Error Rate (BER) of 5.3 × 10−3 at 8 dBm optical power, satisfying the soft-decision forward error correction (SD-FEC) criterion of 1.56 × 10−2 with a 15% overhead. The 2D-CNN outperformed Volterra series and deep neural network approaches in long-haul D-band RoF systems by compensating for phase noise and nonlinear distortions via spatiotemporal feature integration, hierarchical feature extraction, and nonlinear modelling. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Optical Wireless Communications)
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32 pages, 2219 KiB  
Article
Intelligent Health Monitoring in 6G Networks: Machine Learning-Enhanced VLC-Based Medical Body Sensor Networks
by Bilal Antaki, Ahmed Hany Dalloul and Farshad Miramirkhani
Sensors 2025, 25(11), 3280; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25113280 - 23 May 2025
Viewed by 526
Abstract
Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven wireless communication are driving the adoption of Sixth Generation (6G) technologies in crucial environments such as hospitals. Visible Light Communication (VLC) leverages existing lighting infrastructure to deliver high data rates while mitigating electromagnetic interference (EMI); however, patient [...] Read more.
Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven wireless communication are driving the adoption of Sixth Generation (6G) technologies in crucial environments such as hospitals. Visible Light Communication (VLC) leverages existing lighting infrastructure to deliver high data rates while mitigating electromagnetic interference (EMI); however, patient movement induces fluctuating signal strength and dynamic channel conditions. In this paper, we present a novel integration of site-specific ray tracing and machine learning (ML) for VLC-enabled Medical Body Sensor Networks (MBSNs) channel modeling in distinct hospital settings. First, we introduce a Q-learning-based adaptive modulation scheme that meets target symbol error rates (SERs) in real time without prior environmental information. Second, we develop a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)-based estimator for path loss and Root Mean Square (RMS) delay spread under dynamic hospital conditions. To our knowledge, this is the first study combining ray-traced channel impulse response modeling (CIR) with ML techniques in hospital scenarios. The simulation results demonstrate that the Q-learning method consistently achieves SERs with a spectral efficiency (SE) lower than optimal near the threshold. Furthermore, LSTM estimation shows that D1 has the highest Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) for path loss (1.6797 dB) and RMS delay spread (1.0567 ns) in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) ward, whereas D3 exhibits the highest RMSE for path loss (1.0652 dB) and RMS delay spread (0.7657 ns) in the Family-Type Patient Rooms (FTPRs) scenario, demonstrating high estimation accuracy under realistic conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Optical Wireless Communications)
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17 pages, 956 KiB  
Article
Digital Frequency-Domain MIMO Equalizer Enabling Six-LP-Mode Strong-Coupling IM/DD MDM Optical Transmission System
by Jianyu Long, Chen Wang, Ying Wu, Bohan Sang, Chengzhen Bian, Xiongwei Yang, Long Zhang, Yifan Chen, Qinyi Zhang, Ying Wang, Yichen Li, Wen Zhou, Kaihui Wang, Bo Liu, Lei Shen and Jianjun Yu
Sensors 2025, 25(8), 2562; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25082562 - 18 Apr 2025
Viewed by 287
Abstract
Mode division multiplexing (MDM) techniques provide significant enhancement of the capacity of optical intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) short-reach communication systems, like the datacenter interconnection scenarios. While the introduction of multiple modes leads to mode coupling that will extremely deteriorate the received [...] Read more.
Mode division multiplexing (MDM) techniques provide significant enhancement of the capacity of optical intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) short-reach communication systems, like the datacenter interconnection scenarios. While the introduction of multiple modes leads to mode coupling that will extremely deteriorate the received signals, two approaches have been explored to address this issue: one involves the application of all-link weakly coupled components to suppress modal crosstalk, while the other utilizes optical multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) equalizers based on optical devices for signal decoupling. However, pure digital signal processing (DSP)-based schemes for mode decoupling in IM/DD MDM systems with strong mode coupling remain unexplored. In this paper, we propose to use a frequency-domain MIMO equalizer for compensating the modal interference in the strong-coupling linear-polarized (LP) MDM IM/DD system. The signal recovery capability of the proposed method is verified through numerical simulation. Finally, we successfully experimentally demonstrate the transmission of on–off-key (OOK) signals in a six-LP-mode strong-coupling MDM IM/DD system over a 10 km few-mode fiber, employing a pair of strong-coupling mode multiplexers/demultiplexers. The experimental results indicate that, with the frequency-domain MIMO equalizer, OOK signals from all modes can be recovered with an 11% hard-decision forward error correction threshold of 8.3 × 10−3. The proposed method facilitated by flexible DSP software offers an alternative for short-reach communication systems and has the potential to advance the practical application of MDM techniques in the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Optical Wireless Communications)
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21 pages, 2931 KiB  
Article
On the Performance of Energy Harvesting Dual-Hop Free-Space Optical Communication Systems with Secrecy Analysis
by Abdulgani A. Ibrahim, Serdar Özgür Ata and Lütfiye Durak-Ata
Sensors 2025, 25(2), 319; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25020319 - 8 Jan 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 824
Abstract
In this study, we present a dual-hop decode-and-forward relaying-based free-space optical (FSO) communication system. We consider utilizing simultaneous lightwave information and power transfer (SLIPT) with a time-splitting technique at the relay, where the direct current component of the received optical signal is harvested [...] Read more.
In this study, we present a dual-hop decode-and-forward relaying-based free-space optical (FSO) communication system. We consider utilizing simultaneous lightwave information and power transfer (SLIPT) with a time-splitting technique at the relay, where the direct current component of the received optical signal is harvested as a transmit power for the relay. It is assumed that the FSO links experience a Malaga turbulence channel with pointing errors. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed communication system, closed-form expressions for outage probability, ergodic capacity, average bit error rate, and throughput are derived. Additionally, to analyze the physical layer security of the proposed system, closed-form expressions for secrecy outage probability and strictly positive secrecy capacity are obtained. Finally, the accuracy of the derived analytical expressions are validated with Monte Carlo simulations. Results show that our proposed system model outperforms its non-SLIPT counterpart. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Optical Wireless Communications)
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