Chapter 16: INDEED - High Rate Infrared Communications in the Indoor Context
1 Introduction
The introduction of digital wireless links in local and private networks has been boosted by the development of portable PCs in business and leisure environment. The need for physical resources follow the constant increase of services in applications like videoconferencing and multimedia. Consequently, technology will lead to more and more intelligent functions in all kind of devices and equipment. They will be designed to communicate between themselves and the rest of the world. The connection through cables and wires is now considered inconvenient and unbearable in many situations and a major handicap. Furthermore, we must not forget the overlapping of wire connections caused by the multiplicity of links. The tremendous anticipated need for high quality communications justifies the development of radiowave or infrared solutions. Compared to what is considered to be their competitor, infrared optical waves can support heavy traffic, high bit-rates and more privacy/confidentiality in high density areas [Heatly, 1998]. Although Bluetooth and wide personal area network is commercially growing in 2002 as well as Hiperlan/2 (ETSI standards) in Europe and IEEE 802.11a in the US, wireless local area networks, wireless infrared networks follow the IEEE 802.11 standards. IrDa [Williams, 2000] live a more harmonious existence with a universal standard IrDa which should allow for a full use of a large bandwidth opened to infrared waves ( § 3).
Complete exploitation of infrared technology will justify the highest rates, far more than Hiperlan/4, which defines 155 Mbit/s on the lower level regarding physical connections, ie OSI model physical layer.
INDEED project (InDoor InfrarEd Eyesafe Dialogues) follows this context. The object of this study is to consider high rate infrared indoor communications problems, including one application which aims at creating a high rate safety bidirective link, in the 1550 nm optical area, between a top lightwave source and a mobile receiver in an office room. One part of this project will consist of evaluating a realised link by integrating it in ATM support TIC (Terminal Installation Client) of FT R&D [Bourgart, 2000].
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Pages: 191