Ambient light noise and its effect on receiver design for indoor wireless optical links

Knowledge of ambient optical noise is essential for designers of free space optical links, for resilient designs. A complete experimental characterisation of the most common ambient optical radiation is presented. The study includes tungsten filament sources, low and high frequency fluorescent lights, IR headphones, TV remote controls, and daylight. Means of reducing their influence on the performance of the links are also given. The results are valuable towards setting a standard way of comparing wireless IR links, based on testing their performance under such ambient noise.