The past few decades have witnessed the widespread adaptation of wireless

devices such as cellular phones and Wifi-connected laptops, and demand for wireless

communication is expected to continue to increase. Though radio frequency (RF)

communication has traditionally dominated in this application space, recent decades

have seen an increasing interest in the use of optical wireless (OW) communication

to supplement RF communications. In contrast to RF communication technology,

OW systems offer the use of largely unregulated electromagnetic spectrum and large

bandwidths for communication. They also offer the potential to be highly secure

against jamming and eavesdropping. Interest in OW has become especially keen in

light of the maturation of light-emitting diode (LED) technology. This maturation,

and the consequent emerging ubiquity of LED technology in lighting systems, has

motivated the exploration of LEDs for wireless communication purposes in a wide

variety of applications. Recent interest in this field has largely focused on the

potential for indoor local area networks (LANs) to be realized with increasingly

common LED-based lighting systems. We envision the use of LED-based OW to

serve as a supplement to RF technology in communication between mobile platforms,

which may include automobiles, robots, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). OW

technology may be especially useful in what are known as RF-denied environments,

in which RF communication may be prohibited or undesirable.

The use of OW in these settings presents major challenges. In contrast to

many RF systems, OWsystems that operate at ranges beyond a few meters typically

require relatively precise alignment. For example, some laser-based optical wireless

communication systems require alignment precision to within small fractions of a

degree. This level of alignment precision can be difficult to maintain between mobile

platforms. Additionally, the use of OW systems in outdoor settings presents the

challenge of interference from ambient light, which can be much brighter than any

LED transmitter.

This thesis addresses these challenges to the use of LED-based communication

between mobile platforms. We propose and analyze a dual-link LED-based system

that uses one link with a wide transmission beam and relaxed alignment constraints

to support a more narrow, precisely aligned, higher-data-rate link. The use of an

optical link with relaxed alignment constraints to support the alignment of a more

precisely aligned link motivates our exploration of a panoramic imaging receiver for

estimating the range and bearing of neighboring nodes. The precision of such a

system is analyzed and an experimental system is realized. Finally, we present an

experimental prototype of a self-aligning LED-based link.