0968650 Pennsylvania State University; Mohsen Kavehrad 0968651 Tufts University; Valencia Joyner 0968662 University of California-Riverside; Zhengyuan Xu
The Center for Optical Wireless Applications (COWA) will focus on developing new devices using White Light Emitting Devices (WLEDs). Pennsylvania State University (PSU), Tufts University (TU) and the University of California-Riverside (UCR) are collaborating to establish the proposed center, with PSU as the lead institution.
The primary goals of this planning project are to initiate formal partnership with various industry partners and national laboratories that have an interest in optical wireless applications designs, and to discuss fundamental issues and topics for research. The main objective of the envisioned research projects at the proposed Center is to develop a new generation of environment-friendly extremely wideband optical wireless technology applications. The PIs' effort will involve work in relevant device designs, in optical wireless communication systems (physical layer), in networking, sensing, and in imaging.
The proposed Center has the potential to improve the profitability of US manufacturing by developing new optical wireless devices that will improve communication systems, reduce energy consumption and pollution. The proposed Center will offer a series of short courses to update the knowledge of the current workforce and will help universities to tailor new course offerings and to modify existing course offerings to better provide instruction for related areas and industry needs. The Center plans to promote diversity, building on all three universities' high ranking in education of minorities. In addition, the Center will work with existing university resources to recruit and build strong relationships with minority and women-owned companies and provide a collaborative community, within which these companies can contribute expertise, expand their networks and become more globally competitive.
This one-year project aimed to initiate industry/university collaboration interest in optical wireless applications through open discussion forums such as workshops. As a co-chair, the PI co-organized the NSF Optical Wireless Applications Workshop, State College, Pennsylvania, June 8-10, 2010. The workshop attracted dozens of researchers and engineers from leading industry and universities. They include United Technologies Research Center Alcatel-Lucent Army Research Laboratory Fred KF Technologies Sandia National Labs Harris Corporation Boeing Lockheed Martin Corning Incorporated NASA Glenn Research Center Supreme Architecture Oberon, Inc. Telcordia and McMaster University Pennsylvania State University Tufts University Rice University University of California, Riverside Air Force Institute of Technology Potential applications discussed on-site span optical wireless communications, sensing, positioning, and imaging. The PI also served as an organizer and founding chair of the IEEE Globecom 2010 Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications, Miami, Florida, December 6-10, 2010. It attracted more than 30 attendees mainly from universities worldwide. The project also resulted in a conference paper presented at the workshop L. Wang, Y. Li, Z. Xu, and B. M. Sadler, "Wireless ultraviolet network models and performance in noncoplanar geometry," IEEE Globecom 2010 Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications (OWC 2010), Miami, FL, December 10, 2010 Through these activities, both industry and professional society have paid particular attention to this emerging area due to rapid advancements in semiconductor optical sources and detectors in recent years.
