An object of the present disclosure is to make already installed smart lightings available as optical base stations as they are without modifying them, and perform connection/authentication control for RF communication using an optical signal sent out from the optical base stations.

The present disclosure is a wireless communication system including: one or more wireless base stations that wirelessly communicate with a terminal; a base station control device that collects wireless base station information from each wireless base station, determines a wireless base station that wirelessly communicates with the terminal using the collected wireless base station information, and transmits an optical ID corresponding to the determined wireless base station; and one or more optical base stations that receive the optical ID from the base station control device, and transmit the received optical ID to the terminal using an optical signal, wherein the wireless base station determined by the base station control device wirelessly communicates with the terminal that receives the optical ID.

An object of the present disclosure is to make already installed smart lightings available as optical base stations as they are without modifying them, and perform connection/authentication control for RF communication using an optical signal sent out from the optical base stations.

The present disclosure is a wireless communication system including: one or more wireless base stations that wirelessly communicate with a terminal; a base station control device that collects wireless base station information from each wireless base station, determines a wireless base station that wirelessly communicates with the terminal using the collected wireless base station information, and transmits an optical ID corresponding to the determined wireless base station; and one or more optical base stations that receive the optical ID from the base station control device, and transmit the received optical ID to the terminal using an optical signal, wherein the wireless base station determined by the base station control device wirelessly communicates with the terminal that receives the optical ID.

An optical wireless communication system (1) for wirelessly transmitting a signal beam (L) between optical communication units (2) and (3) located at two points apart from each other includes an aiming mechanism (4) that is provided in each of the optical communication units (2) and (3) located at the two points and has an aiming line (S), which is parallel to an optical axis (O) and has a predetermined interval from the optical axis (O), with the optical axis (O) of the signal beam (L) of each of the optical communication units (2) and (3) located at the two points aligned in a straight line, and a first front sight that is provided in each of the optical communication units (2) and (3) and provided at a position that is off the optical axis (O) and the aiming line (S) and has a predetermined interval from the optical axis (O) and a predetermined interval from the aiming line (S).

An apparatus comprises a support structure and one or more first optical components on the support structure that communicatively couple with a first endpoint. The one or more first optical components are configured to output and receive optical signals that travel over a free space medium to establish a secure link between the first endpoint and a second endpoint.

An apparatus comprises a support structure and one or more first optical components on the support structure that communicatively couple with a first endpoint. The one or more first optical components are configured to output and receive optical signals that travel over a free space medium to establish a secure link between the first endpoint and a second endpoint.

Adaptive communications focal plane arrays that may be implemented in, e.g., a specially-configured camera that can be utilized to receive and/or process information in the form of optical beams are presented. A specialized focal plane array (FPA) having a plurality of optical detectors is utilized, where one or more optical detectors are suppressed such that data is not allowed to be output from the one or more suppressed optical detectors, and only a significantly smaller number or subset of optical detectors receiving optical beams are allowed to output data. In this way, the rate at which data is to be output by an adaptive communications FPA (ACFPA) can be significantly reduced.

Adaptive communications focal plane arrays that may be implemented in, e.g., a specially-configured camera that can be utilized to receive and/or process information in the form of optical beams are presented. A specialized focal plane array (FPA) having a plurality of optical detectors is utilized, where one or more optical detectors are suppressed such that data is not allowed to be output from the one or more suppressed optical detectors, and only a significantly smaller number or subset of optical detectors receiving optical beams are allowed to output data. In this way, the rate at which data is to be output by an adaptive communications FPA (ACFPA) can be significantly reduced.

A grating emitter method and system for modulating the polarization of an optical beam, such as one for transmission through free-space or use in an atomic clock.

A method for transmitting a plurality of input streams from a transmitter to a receiver processes each of a plurality of input data streams to generate a plurality of parallel pairs of data streams including an in-phase stream (I) and a quadrature-phase stream (Q) for each of the plurality of input data streams. Each of the plurality of parallel pairs of data streams are modulated with a selected one of at least three prolate spheroidal wave functions, respectively, to generate a plurality of data signals, each of the plurality of data signals associated with one of the plurality of parallel pairs of data streams. A plurality of composite data streams are generated by overlaying at least one data signal of the plurality of data signals in a first data layer with the at least one data signal of the plurality of data signals in a second data layer. The plurality of composite data streams are processed to associate with each of the plurality of composite data streams an orthogonal function to cause each of the plurality of composite data streams to be mutually orthogonal to each other on the link to enable transmission of each of the plurality of the composite data streams on the link at a same time.

Digital data is optically broadcast through an environment by controllably switching the brightness or chrominance of LED solid state lamps, or of other illumination sources (e.g., television screens and backlit computer displays). This optical data channel is useful to convey cryptographic key data by which devices within the environment can authenticate themselves to a secure network. In some embodiments, the optical modulation is sensed by the camera of a smartphone. The row data output by the smartphone's camera sensor is processed to extract the modulated data signal. In some monochrome embodiments, data communication speeds far in excess of the camera's frame rate (e.g., 30/second), or even the camera's row rate (e.g., 14,400/second) are achieved. Still greater rates can be achieved by conveying different data in different chrominance channels. A great number of other features and arrangements are also detailed.