Implementation of an Indoor Free-Space Optical Communication Link Using On-Off Keying Optical Modulation, a Useful Didactic Tool for Optoelectronic Engineering Students

This work describes the experimental implementation of an indoor Free-Space Optical (FSO) communication link using On-Off Keying optical modulation for a laser source. FSO is a topic of big interest due to is an optical communication technique that propagates light in free space to wirelessly transfer data in indoor and outdoor environments. Therefore, this proposal allows optoelectronic engineering students involved in optical communications to complement the formation of the classroom. The experimental setup uses an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) development card to process the electrical information to be transmitted that is used to directly modulate a laser source whose central wavelength is 830 nm. The novelty of this proposal resides in the fact that the digitized information to be transmitted is easily processed in the FPGA, which makes it easier and more direct the optical modulation. This experimental setup can be easily replicated in a laboratory and has a potential application as a didactic tool in a course on optical communication systems.