On Real Time Optical Wireless Communication Channel Emulator Design with FPGAs

This paper discusses the implementation details of a channel emulator suited for optical wireless communications (OWC) systems. The channel emulator comprises functional blocks able to model the transmitter, the receiver and the channel. It is in this sense a valuable tool for system performance evaluation. The proposed design uses field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) as supporting hardware platform, enabling flexible and expedite interconnection with other system blocks. The achieved design operates in real time, allowing timely and realistic assessment of the channel and terminal equipment impairments on the overall system. Achieved results demonstrate the feasibility to address channel emulation with 500ps time resolution, with negligible quantization errors when compared to the predefined channel coefficients.