GreenCom – Green Optical Wireless Communications Facilitated by Photonic Power Harvesting

This ICON collaboration plan aims at largely uncharted capabilities of free-space optical technologies which are an increasingly important pillar within a green digital revolution for our future sustainable and connected society. It will unlock the potential of energy-efficient ultra-high-speed wireless devices and fifth generation (5G) and sixth generation (6G) wireless optical communication systems. The University of Strathclyde’s LiFi Research and Development Centre (LRDC) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) partner to complement optical wireless communications with photonic power harvesting to facilitate green connectivity. ISE will develop unique semiconductor devices for combined power harvesting and data reception with unprecedented photovoltaic conversion efficiency and electrical bandwidth. LRDC will advance network protocols and algorithms to achieve ultra-high data rates and low power consumption. Based on both partners unique expertise in their respective fields, the partnership will create new applications in the fields of future sustainable mobile wireless communications (optical wireless fronthaul, optical wireless backhaul) as well as smart wireless devices for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0, and thereby lay the foundation for a new research area. Joint experimentation within the project will push the performance boundaries of optical wireless links and will set a new benchmark for simultaneous harvested power and transmitted data rates with a 10-Gb/s 1-W optical link.