Advances in Sensing Technologies for Optical Communication
A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Optical Sensors".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 March 2027 | Viewed by 69
Editors
Interests: optical phased arrays (OPA); optical wireless communication (OWC); underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC); LiDAR; optical sensor; robotics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: space-airborne radar sensing; high-performance antennas; low-noise amplifiers; ultra-low-noise receiver systems; radio frequency sensing; wireless communication
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Optical communication is becoming an important foundation for next-generation sensing systems, driven by the rapid growth of intelligent transportation, smart robotics, industrial monitoring, Internet of Things networks and marine observation. Compared with conventional radio-frequency technologies, optical communication offers abundant spectrum resources, high spatial confinement, electromagnetic interference immunity, low power consumption and the potential for integrated illumination, sensing, positioning and data transmission. These features make optical communication highly relevant to the development of advanced sensors and sensor networks in both terrestrial and underwater environments.
Despite these advantages, sensing technologies for optical communication still face significant challenges, including channel fading, optical noise, alignment sensitivity, limited transmission distance, hardware miniaturization and complex propagation conditions in dynamic indoor, robotic, industrial and ocean scenarios. Recent advances in optoelectronic and photonic sensors, AI-enabled signal processing, multi-sensor fusion, visible light communication, underwater optical wireless communication and robot-assisted perception create new opportunities to improve the reliability, intelligence and practical deployment of optical communication-based sensing systems. This topic is therefore timely and well aligned with the scope of Sensors, particularly in optoelectronic sensors, AI-enabled sensors, joint communication and sensing, sensor networks, robotics and positioning/navigation.
This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the most recent advances related to sensing technologies for optical communication. We consider contributions addressing optical sensor devices, communication-sensing integration, channel modeling, intelligent signal processing, positioning, detection, networking and prototype validation for indoor, outdoor, robotic, industrial and marine applications.
Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Sensing technologies for optical communication systems
- Visible light communication-based sensing and positioning
- Underwater optical wireless communication and marine optical sensing
- Optoelectronic and photonic sensor devices
- AI-enabled signal processing, denoising, equalization and detection
- Joint optical communication and sensing
- Optical wireless communication and its technologies for pointing, acquisition and tracking
- Optical wireless integrated sensing and communication
- Light detection and ranging (LiDAR)
- Optical positioning, navigation and localization
- Robotic perception and light-based collaborative sensing
- Channel modeling and anti-fading algorithms for optical links
- Multi-sensor fusion, optical sensor networks and real-world prototype validation
Dr. Caiming Sun
Prof. Dr. Wensong Wang
Prof. Dr. Xu Zhu
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- optical wireless communication
- light detection and ranging (LiDAR)
- optoelectronic sensors
- joint sensing and communication
- optical wireless integrated sensing and communication
- AI-enabled sensors
- robotic perception
- optical positioning
- marine optical sensing
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