Real-Time Transmission of Uncompressed High-Definition Video Via A VCSEL-Based Optical Wireless Link With Ultra-Low Latency

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a laser-based optical wireless system capable of transmitting uncompressed high-definition video in real-time with ultra-low latency, suitable for professional broadcast applications.

Contribution

The authors design and experimentally validate a VCSEL-based optical wireless link that transmits uncompressed HD and 4K video at multi-gigabit speeds with sub-millisecond latency.

Findings

Error-free transmission of 1080p and 4K video at 2.97 Gb/s and 5.94 Gb/s

End-to-end latency measured under 35 nanoseconds

Scalable, low-cost solution using off-the-shelf SDI components

Abstract

Real-time transmission of high-resolution video signals in an uncompressed and unencrypted format requires an ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC) medium with high bandwidth to maintain the quality of experience (QoE) for users. We put forward the design and experimental demonstration of a high-performance laser-based optical wireless communication (OWC) system that enables high-definition (HD) video transmission with submillisecond latencies. The serial digital interface (SDI) output of a camera is used to transmit the live video stream over an optical wireless link by directly modulating the SDI signal on the intensity of a 940 nm vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL). The proposed SDI over light fidelity (LiFi) system corroborates error-free transmission of full HD (FHD) and 4K ultra-high-definition (UHD) resolutions at data rates of 2.97 Gb/s and 5.94 Gb/s, respectively, with a measured end-to-end latency of under 35 ns. Since SDI standards support various video formats and VCSELs are high-bandwidth and low-power devices, this presents a scalable and inexpensive solution for wireless connectivity between professional broadcast equipment using off-the-shelf SDI components.