Drone-based mobile full-duplex optical communication

Abstract

Wireless optical communication plays a vital role in mobile communication networks, and both drones and vehicles are essential mobile communication nodes. Here, image identification technology, gimbal, and full-duplex optical communication systems are integrated to manage the challenging issues of light alignment and target tracking for mobile full-duplex optical communication under the transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) scheme. Both drones and vehicles are equipped with the proposed setup to realize full-duplex wireless optical data transmission at a communication rate of 2 Mbps in both air-to-ground and air-to-air scenarios. By further integrating wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) modules, drone-based mobile optical communication systems (MOCSs) can be interconnected with the network via the TCP/IP scheme, and real-time video transmission can be demonstrated. This work provides a feasible route toward a mobile optical communication network (MOCN) for diverse applications.