Channel viability of intra-vehicle optical wireless communications

This paper provides a first-of-its-kind look at the viability of the optical wireless channel for use in intra-vehicular communications applications. The analysis, focusing on the received power and bandwidth availability of an optical wireless system utilising a centrally located single infra-red LED within a sports utility vehicle, shows that the vehicle´s passengers can take advantage of received powers up to 49 μW with bandwidths ≥ 300 MHz. Furthermore, interior regions such as the dashboard area are illuminated with a sufficient power and bandwidth that simple user-vehicle interfaces such as a window, air-conditioning or audio-visual controllers are highly plausible. The advantages of utilising optical wireless communications within the vehicle, is not only about increased bandwidth availability whilst maintaining allowable user mobility, but also the potential mitigation of radio frequency interference, lower system costs through the utilisation of license free spectrum and increasing manufacturing efficiency by lowering the complexity of copper cabling.