Sensitivity assessment of a three-segment pyramidal fly-eye detector in a semidisperse optical wireless communication link

A pyramidal fly-eye diversity detection configuration is presented for wireless infrared communication in small and middle-sized office rooms. It is demonstrated that the configuration combats the sensitivity degradation imposed by multipath dispersion and ambient noise in a semidisperse environment. The improvement is especially notable when the threshold level is set to its optimum value with regard to the maximum collected level of ambient noise and multipath dispersion. As the number of photodetectors in the configuration is limited, the penalty paid for an increase in performance is a limited increase in complexity. The applied simulation method used to determine the received pulse shapes and the detected level of ambient noise is outlined. Original analytical details are provided which enable the evaluation of the system sensitivity, for any detected pulse shape and any fixed threshold level