On 12 December 2023, Prof. Ton Koonen, will hold his PhD defence at TU/e, Atlas building, room 0.710.
His defence will be on

High-capacity optical wireless communication by directed narrow beams

Popular summary (US English)

Wireless communication is pervading nearly every part of our lives: we use our smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc., almost continuously, and want to stay connected wherever we are. Also, in the upcoming Internet-of-Things there will be a myriad of devices which want to be connected wirelessly. However, the radio spectrum is getting congested and crosstalk between the many users is seriously hampering access to the presently radio-based wireless communication. Optical wireless communication can come to help here. As we already know from the optical fibre world, optical communication can transport huge amounts of information with enormous bandwidths and very low losses and does not suffer from crosstalk by electro-magnetic disturbances. Optical wireless communication by means of narrow optical beams behaves similarly as optical fibre communication, but without needing a wired connection. So, it can offer the major benefit of wireless communication, namely freedom-of-movement. Moreover, light does not penetrate walls and the beams get only there where they are intended to go, so it removes crosstalk between the users. The latter makes the system highly energy-efficient also, as no beam energy is wasted. Note that an optical beam can have an even higher bandwidth than a fibre, and also a smaller delay, as it does not suffer from waveguide dispersion and nothing goes faster than light in air, as Einstein already stated..

The thesis treats in-depth the design of indoor optical wireless communication networks, including the key functions: the transmit function steering the beams, the localization function finding the devices where the beams need to go to, and the receive function which enables to receive a beam over a maximum range of angles and with maximum aperture in order to catch as much as possible light of the beam. These functions have been analysed, designed, realised and implemented in a laboratory setup, which shows the viability of our concept for bi-directional optical wireless transmission of high-speed data streams. We demonstrated successfully the individual optical wireless transmission of high-definition Gigabit Ethernet video streams to multiple closely spaced users.

Popular summary (EN)

Wireless communication has penetrated almost all parts of our lives: we use our smartphones, laptops, tablet computers, etc., almost constantly, and we want to stay connected wherever we are. In addition, in the coming Internet-of-Things, there will be countless things that want to be connected wirelessly. But the radio spectrum is becoming saturated, and crosstalk between the many users is seriously complicating access to current radio-based wireless communications. Optical wireless communication may come to the rescue.

As we already know from the fibre-optic world, optical communication can transport huge amounts of information with huge bandwidth and very low losses.

Moreover, it does not suffer from crosstalk due to electro-magnetic disturbances. Optical wireless communication using narrow light beams behaves similar to fibre optics, but without needing to be connected to a wire. Thus, it offers the main advantage of wireless communication, namely freedom of movement. Moreover, light does not pass through walls and the beams only reach where and when they are needed, so it avoids crosstalk between users.

This also makes the system very energy-efficient, as no beam energy is wasted.

Remarkably, an optical beam can have even more bandwidth than a fibre optic, and less delay, because a beam does not suffer from waveguide dispersion and nothing travels faster than light through air as Einstein argued..

The thesis covers in detail the design of indoor wireless optical communication networks, including the key functions: directing the beams, locating the users where the beams should go, and receiving the beams over the widest possible angular range and with maximum aperture to capture as much light from the beam as possible.

These features were analysed, designed, realised and built together in a laboratory setup that demonstrates the viability of our concept for two-way optical wireless transmission of high-speed data. We have successfully demonstrated individual optical wireless transmission of high-definition video streams with Gigabit Ethernet speed to multiple closely spaced users.

Speaker:

prof A.M.J. (Ton) Koomen Eindhoven University

Research profile

Ton Koonen is a full professor of Electro-Optical Communications and Chair of Broadband Communication Networks in the Department of Telecommunication Technology and Electromagnetics. His areas of specialisation include computer systems, architectures and networks, telecommunications, broadband and optical fibre-to/in-the-home. Ton has initiated and led several European and national R&D projects in this area on dynamically reconfigurable hybrid fibre access networks, fibre-wireless, packet-switched access, and short-range multimode (polymer) optical fibre networks, and label-controlled optical packet routed networks.

His current research interests are optical fibre-supported in-building networks (including optical wireless communication techniques, radio-over-fibre techniques, and high-capacity plastic optical fibre (POF) techniques), optical access networks, and spatial division multiplexed systems. His group has, for example, developed a Wi-Fi network that transmits signals via infrared light, achieving a speed of 42.8 Gb/s, 100 times faster than current networks generally achieve. At this speed, an entire film could be transferred in one second.

Academic background

Ton Koonen received his MSc (with honours) in Electrical Engineering from TU/e in 1979.In that year, he joined Philips Telecommunications Industry (Telecommunications Industry). From 1987 to 2000 he worked on high-speed transmission systems and optical fibre systems for hybrid access networks at Bell Laboratories within Lucent. He has also worked as a professor at the University of Twente, holding a chair on Photonic Networks.

Ton is chairman of the Electro-Optical Communication Systems (ECO) group, part of the COBRA institute and from September 2012 he was also vice-dean of the Electrical Engineering department. Ton is a Bell Labs Fellow, IEEE Fellow, OSA Fellow, ERC Advanced Investigator Grant Winner, Distinguished Guest Professor of Hunan University, Changsha, China, and has frequently acted as an auditor and reviewer on national and EC projects. Currently, he is involved in a number of access/in-home projects in the Freeband programme, the IOP GenCom programme, and the EC FP6 IST and FP7 ICT programmes. He has authored and co-authored more than 250 conference and journal publications.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person's work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

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