683results about "Line-of-sight transmission" patented technology

The invention relates to a cellular communication system based on a central main unit, a primary-cell communication unit connected to the central main unit, and a number of secondary-cell communication units. Each secondary-cell unit is connected to the primary-cell unit via a respective wireless optical link. The secondary-cell communication units are preferably remote radio units in a distributed radio base system, where each remote radio unit forms a distributed radio base station together with the central main unit. The wireless optical link quality is measured to detect reduced link availability. The invention compensates for insufficient link availability by providing adequate radio coverage from another communication unit within the cellular system and re-directing the radio traffic to that communication unit. Adequate radio coverage from another communication unit within the cellular system and re-directing the radio traffic to that communication unit. Adequate radio coverage is accomplished either by dynamically increasing the radio coverage or using a micro-macro cell architecture.

For an information terminal to be operated by users for collecting predetermined pieces of information from remote information devices by free-space optical communication, the present invention provides a technique for suppressing the power consumption of the information terminal by minimizing the amount of calculation performed to collect the aforementioned information. According to the present invention, each information device emits ID light on which a low-frequency pilot signal is superimposed. The information terminal captures a series of frames of images including the ID light and locates the ID light within the images by the following steps: (1) creating multiple levels of binned images having different resolutions for each frame of the image; (2) calculating an evaluation index for each pixel within a target range of the binned images at each level, from the lowest to the highest resolution, where the target range is narrowed every time the process switches over to a lower level. In (2), the evaluation index is calculated by an evaluation function including fast Fourier transformation performed throughout the series of frames of images. The evaluation index thus calculated is compared with a threshold to determine whether the pixel concerned is receiving ID light. The present technique significantly reduces the number of pixel to be analyzed and evaluated, thereby decreasing the total number of arithmetic operations to be performed using the evaluation function. Thus, the power consumption is suppressed.

An illuminating light communication device is provided to construct a communication system in which, when data are transmitted by using an electric power line and illuminating light, light intensity fluctuations of the illuminating light are suppressed and communication by means of the electric power line and the illuminating light can be well carried out. When data to be transmitted are sent through an electric power line, signal components are extracted in a filter (12), they are demodulated in an electric power line modulating unit (13), so that data are obtained. The obtained data are tentatively stored in a protocol converting unit (14). The data are then converted to an optical communication protocol, a semiconductor light emitting element (16) is turned on or off, or its light quantity is controlled to modulate illuminating light in accordance with data to be transmitted by a light source controller (15). Thus, the data are transmitted by making use of the illuminating light. As a modulation system for the light communication, multiple-value PPM may be used, wherein an existing pulse is set to OFF while a non-existing pulse is set to ON.

An apparatus is provided that includes a modulator and an optical transmitter coupled to the modulator and configured to emit an optical beam that the modulator is configured to modulate with data. The optical transmitter may thereby be configured to emit the optical beam carrying the data and without artificial confinement for receipt by an optical receiver configured to detect and recover the data from the optical beam. The optical transmitter may be configured to emit the optical beam with a divergence angle greater than 0.1 degrees, and with a photonic efficiency of less than 0.05%. The photonic efficiency may relate a number of photons of the optical beam detectable by the optical receiver, to a number of photons of the optical beam emitted by the optical transmitter.

An apparatus is described which uses directly modulated InGaN Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) or InGaN lasers as the transmitters for an underwater data-communication device. The receiver uses automatic gain control to facilitate performance of the apparatus over a wide-range of distances and water turbidities.