A Novel Network Architecture for Indoor Optical Wireless Communication

Abstract

Optical wireless communication is emerging as a potential wireless networking alternative, made possible with the promising developments in the physical layer transmission. While the highspeed optical wireless transceivers have been demonstrated with data rates well over 10 Gbps, other technologies in the form of beam steering, optical localization and modulation/coding are also used to enhance the coverage and reliability of the optical wireless links. Given the ultra-high data rates and the complexity of these transceivers, existing access network architectures and protocols such as passive optical networks or Wi-Fi are not directly applicable to optical wireless communication. Thus, there is a necessity to develop a novel network architecture to gain all the benefits that can be provided by optical wireless communication. To this end, we propose, FLOWN, an architecture with a full-duplex data plane, which is assisted by a separate control plane. The FLOWN architecture includes a central office with the active devices, which is connected to individual access points in the coverage areas via optical fiber links. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed centralized architecture coupled with advanced features including network function virtualization could realize future-oriented high-capacity optical wireless networks to support diverse next-generation mobile applications.