Light Communication for Controlling Industrial Robots

Abstract: Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) is regarded as an auspicious communication approach that can outperform the existing wireless technology. It utilizes LED lights, whose subtle variation in radiant intensity generate a binary data stream. This is perceived by a photodiode, that converts it to electric signals for further interpretation. This article aims at exploring the use of this emerging technology in order to control wirelessly industrial robots, overcoming the need for wires, especially in environments where radio waves are not working due to environmental factors or not allowed for safety reasons. We performed experiments to ensure the suitability and efficiency of OWC based technology for the aforementioned scope and "in vitro" tests in various Line-of-Sight (LoS) and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS) configurations to observe the system throughput and reliability. The technology performance in the "clear LoS" and in the presence of a transparent barrier, were also analyzed.