Comparison of AIr and IEEE 802.11 with Optical CDMA in Wireless Infrared Communication

Optical Code Division Multiple Access has recently received considerable attention in wireless infrared communication. Previously introduced algorithms for wireless indoor infrared communication such as Advanced Infrared and IEEE 802.11 infrared standard use specific media access control (MAC) layer algorithms to coordinate transmission of multiple users. In this paper, we compare the multiple access performance of OCDMA with that of these algorithms and demonstrate the relative strengths and weaknesses of each algorithm. It is demonstrated that when MAC delay is an important issue, OCDMA provides a much better performance. Furthermore, OCDMA requires no coordination between users as they are separated in code domain.