Digital pulse interval modulation for optical communications

This article presents a study of digital pulse interval modulation (DPIM) for optical wireless communications using intensity modulation with direct detection. The DPIM code properties are discussed, and expressions for the transmission capacity, power spectrum, and error probability are presented. We show that for a given number of bits per symbol, DPIM has a higher transmission capacity, a similar spectral profile, and only a marginally inferior error probability performance compared with pulse position modulation, and is rather less complex to implement. Finally, problems associated with the nonuniform symbol length characteristics of DPIM together with possible solutions are discussed