Back to results
US 2004/0165884 A1Published application
Optical communication device and system
OwnerSalah Al-Chalabiinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
OwnerSalah Al-Chalabiinventor
Estimating the term…
An optical telephone and communication system with interferometers at the transmitter and receiver can use optical time-delay difference and differential frequency shift modulation and multiplexing techniques. The power to the system is provided from either a remote optical source through the optical network or a local optical source. The optical network provides one or two optical connections to the sets. Part of the optical signal from the network is converted to electrical energy stored in a rechargeable battery. The optical sources used have a known coherence function, wavelength and coherence length Lc. The transmitter converts the information to phase variation in one arm of the transmitter interferometer and the receiver recovers this signal by using a matched interferometer. The path imbalance between the two arms of either interferometer is greater than Lc. Each set is assigned a particular time delay difference and/or differential frequency shift for addressing.
An optical network (260) for carrying communication signals to or from at least one end point (210, 220, 230, 240) in optical form, the network comprising:
An optical network according to either one of the preceding claims wherein, in use, the optical power source and the optical signal carrier source are the same source (250, 255), the optical signal carrier being used partly at the transmitting/receiving apparatus (211, 221, 231, 241, 214, 224, 234, 244) for conversion of delivered optical power to electrical power.
An optical network according to any one of the preceding claims wherein, in use, said interferometric modulation comprises one or more interference fringes created by passing an optical carrier through an unbalanced interferometer (300, 410).
An optical network according to any one of the preceding claims wherein, in use, said interferometric modulation comprises frequency modulation.
An optical network according to any one of the preceding claims wherein, in use, the interferometric modulation is used for either one or both of addressing and information content.
An optical network according to any one of the preceding claims, for use in sensing one or more environmental parameters and transmitting an information-carrying optical communication signal wherein the information is representative of each said parameter, the transmitting/receiving apparatus (211, 221, 231, 241, 214, 224, 234, 244) being adapted to sense said one or mom environmental parameters as interferometric modulation and to transmit said signal comprising said modulation.
Optical transmitting/receiving apparatus for receiving optical power delivered to an end point (210, 220, 230, 240) over a network (260) according to any one of the preceding claims, and for transmitting signals over the network (260) from said end point (210, 220, 230, 240), which apparatus is provided with at least one interferometer (300, 410) for applying said interferometric modulation, at least one power conversion device (350) for converting received optical power to electrical power, and at least one electrical storage device (355) for storing at least a portion of the converted optical power.
Optical receiving apparatus for receiving optical signals over a network, which apparatus is provided with at least two interferometers (705, 710) for detecting interferometric modulation in a received signal, a first interferometer (705, 710) being arranged for use in detecting a first type of modulation in the received signal and a second interferometer (705, 710) being arranged for use in detecting a second type of modulation in the received signal.
A receiver for use in a wavelength division multiplexed communication system, for receiving wavelength division multiplexed channels in optical communications, said receiver (810) comprising a filter for filtering out one or more wavelength ranges carrying sand wavelength division multiplexed channels from an incoming optical carrier, wherein the receiver further comprises an interferometer (500, 705, 710) for use in detecting, in a portion of the incoming optical carrier outside the wavelength division multiplexed channels, interference fringes generated using a transmitting interferometer with a characteristic path length difference.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.