Communication via a multimode constellation

• US 8,817,895 B2
• Filed: 05/06/2013
• Issued: 08/26/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Winzer, Peter J.
• Primary Examiner(s): WANG, TED M
• Application Number:
  US13/887,594
• Publication Number:
  US 20130243426A1
• Time in Patent Office: 477 Days
• Field of Search: 375/259, 375/316, 375/324, 375/340
• US Class Current: 375/259
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/07 Arrangements for monitoring or testing transmission systems; Arrangements for fault measurement of transmission systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 10/2581 Multimode transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/04 Mode multiplex systems

Abstract

An apparatus includes a digital data transmitter capable of sequentially exciting different sets of one or more propagation modes in a physical communication channel. Each set of one or more propagation modes has a different spatial distribution of transmitted energy in the channel. The digital data transmitter is configured to sequentially change the excited set of one or more propagation modes to transmit a different value of data to the communication channel.

Claims

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a digital data receiver being configured to measure a spatial energy distribution of one or more received electromagnetic signals in each temporal symbol period of a sequence and being configured to identify a set of one or more propagation modes excited in a physical communication channel by a transmitter from the spatial energy distribution measured for the corresponding temporal symbol period; and

wherein the digital data receiver is configured to identify a stream of transmitted digital data corresponding to the sequence of identified sets, different ones of the identified sets corresponding to different values of the transmitted digital data.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the digital data receiver includes an array of antennas, the antennas for measuring the spatial energy distributions.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the digital data receiver includes an optical detector capable of identifying a propagation mode of an optical signal.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the optical detector is configured to measure spatial intensities of optical signals received from free space.

5. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the optical detector is configured to measure spatial intensities of optical signals received from a multi-mode optical waveguide.