High data rate optical wireless communications: Where next?

Recently there have been demonstrations of Gbit/s communications systems using infra-red optical wireless. There are also reports of much higher link data rate experiments, and simulated architectures that will operate at several Gbit/s. In this paper we review the Gbit/s system that was fabricated at Oxford as part of a recent European Community funded project, as an example of the challenges that face high data rate optical wireless. Approaches to exceeding 1 Gbit/s are described, together with the limitations that they have. Several potential future directions are outlined.