Broadband optical wireless communications for the teleoperation of mining equipment

Abstract

The current level of technological advancement of our civilization serving more than seven billion human population requires new sources of biotic and abiotic natural resources. The depletion and scarcity of high-grade mineral deposits in dry land are forcing the Natural Re- sources industry to look for alternate sources in underwater environments and outer space, requiring the creation of reliable broadband omnidirectional wireless communication systems that allows the teleoperation of exploration and production equipment. Within these ob- jectives, Optical Wireless Communications (OWC) are starting to be used as an alternative or complement to standard radio systems, due to important advantages that optical wave- lengths have to transmit data: potential for Terabit/s bit rates, broadband operation in underwater environments, energy e ciency and better protection against interference and eavesdropping. This research focus in two crucial design aspects required to implement broadband OWC systems for the teleoperation of mining equipment: high bandwidth wide beam photon emission and low noise omnidirectional Free-Space Optical (FSO) receivers. Novel OWC omnidirectional receivers using guided wavelength-shifting photon concentra- tion are experimented in over 100 meters range vehicle teleoperation.