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1. ON THE DESIGN OF A SOLAR-PANEL RECEIVER FOR
OPTICAL WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS WITH
SIMULTANEOUS ENERGY HARVESTING
ABSTRACT
This paper proposes a novel design of an optical wireless communications (OWC)
receiver using a solar panel as a photodetector. The proposed system is capable of simultaneous
data transmission and energy harvesting. The solar panel can convert a modulated light signal
into an electrical signal without any external power requirements. Furthermore, the direct current
(DC) component of the modulated light can be harvested in the proposed receiver. The generated
energy can potentially be used to power a user terminal or at least to prolong its operation time.
The current work discusses the various parameters which need to be considered in the design of a
system using a solar panel for simultaneous communication and energy harvesting. The
presented theory is supported with an experimental implementation of orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing (OFDM), thus, proving the validity of the analysis and demonstrating the
feasibility of the proposed receiver. Using the propounded system, a communication link with a
data rate of 11.84 Mbps is established for a received optical signal with a peak-to-peak amplitude
of 0.7×10−3 W/cm2.