-1Performance and Design Report for a Basic

Optical Wireless Communications System

GENERAL SYNOPSIS:
This report covers the implementation of a wireless communication system via a
basic transmitter/receiver pair. The system block diagram is as follows:

The signal source served as the information to be transmitted. The transmitter

used IR to transmit to the receiver; the receiver amplified the received input in order to
drive the speaker and allow the user to hear a transmitted monotone.

SYSTEM LAYOUT AND DESIGN:

Block 1: Signal Source

The function generator served as the signal source. This source was coupled to the
transmitting LED via the indicated node of the voltage divider schematic below:

Fig. 1
Node V1 was held at a non zero dc bias with absent signal conditions. 200 mV
peak to peak was applied to node V1 and the current in the diode perturbed about this
value; the output was sensed across R1.

Block 2: Transmitter
Figure 1 shows the schematic of the transmitter. As a first step towards its design
and construction, I found the threshold of conduction for the LED to be around 2.5V.
Satisfactory LED intensity occurred at a supply voltage of 5V; 5V also guaranteed that
the diode would remain in forward conduction mode with out behaving non linearly in
response to the signal provided the signal amplitude was reasonable. I then finished the
transmitter by connecting the diode in series with R1 and node V1.

Block 3: Receiver
The basic receiver schematic is pictured below:

Fig 2.
The voltage read across R6 results from the current of D2 and is amplified via the
op amp. The output was the waveform that drove the speaker; the output waveform trace
is provided in the next section.

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS:

After constructing the transmitter, I tested the functionality via an oscilloscope

reading which produced the following trace:

Fig. 3
The blue trace represents the transmitted signal from the LED while the yellow is
the measured received signal at the photodiode. Both waveforms have been scaled for
clarity.(Also, the amplitudes were increased)
Since the signal at the photodiode output served as the input to the amplifier
stage, both traces are shown on the same picture for comparison:
 Fig. 4
The output signal from the amplifier stage in figure 4 is displayed in yellow.

DISCUSSION AND COMMENTS ON FINISHED PRODUCT:

The major problem faced during this lab was achieving proper functionality of the
receiver. The small signal transmitted from the LED never showed up at the output of the
photodiode. I separated the receiver into a photodiode and amplifier circuit and then
raised the signal voltage but still saw no signal across R6 of figure 2.I attributed this
problem to a potential malfunctioning (due to accidental over heating) of the photodiode
and thus solicited the cooperation of another student who had problems with the
transmitter. This cooperative effort yielded success.
I am largely unfamiliar with the implementations pursued by others and this is the
singular implementation that I pursued; thus I have no way of relating the advantages this
transmitter has over other topologies. I believe that it is the simplest implementation of
the specifications and that this is its only real advantage.
Overall, this project provided a great opportunity to apply knowledge to a
potentially useful product. I hope to modify this circuit in the future so that it will
interface to a frequency generator of my own design. The press of a button would change
the frequency of the signal into the LED and different transmitted signals would
correspond to different commands or actions. I know not yet what I wish to control via
this method but I anticipate finishing the circuit soon.