Use of Plastic Optical Fibers for Distributed MIMO in Li-Fi Systems

Previous researches on optical wireless communication (OWC) focused mainly on increasing the data rate for mobile broadband delivery. However, for new applications such as industrial wireless, reliability and robustness against interference play a crucial role. This paper focuses on the design, characterization, and real-world testing of novel solutions for OWC taking industrial requirements into account. Recent experimental works have demonstrated the feasibility of reliable OWC in a manufacturing environment. Here we propose to implement networked OWC which is also known as Li-Fi by means of a distributed MIMO approach enabling ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) which is an important use case for 5G and beyond mobile networks. For distributing the MIMO signals, plastic optic fiber (POF) is a promising low-cost solution offering high data rates, easy deployment and inherent robustness against electromagnetic interference. As POF may become a main component for Li-Fi using distributed MIMO, commercially available POF solutions are studied and their usability for this new application to distribute signal between central unit and multiple frontends is discussed.