Solar module as a high-speed data receiver with ambient light suppression in an outdoor scenario

Cost-effective, energy-efficient, and high-speed data transmissions are important requirements for future networks. Light communication (LC) using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can fulfill these requirements owing to the huge unlicensed light spectrum. Optical sources are highly directional with low co-channel interference and interference with radio frequency devices. On the receiver side, positive-intrinsic-negative photodiodes (PDs) and avalanche photodiodes are used due to their ability to provide high-speed linear photodetection. However, the impact of ambient light and misalignment issues due to smaller receiver areas is the biggest challenge for the outdoor operation of light communication. This paper presents a hardware implementation of analog circuitry to suppress the impact of ambient light along with bandwidth enhancement of a solar module as a data receiver. Solar modules with bigger receiver areas can also mitigate misalignment issues along with the speed of data transmission. This work presents a 99% ambient light suppression tested in an outdoor environment with a peak intensity of 93,500 lx over a solar module. A maximum transmission distance of 3.5 m is achieved using an infrared light source with a data rate of 5.5 Mbps.