This review paper discusses the complete evolution of free-space optical (FSO) communication, also known as unguided optical communication (UOC) technologies, all the way back to ancient man’s fire to today’s machine-learning-supported UOC systems. The principles, significance, and developments that have happened over the past several decades, as well as installation methodologies, technological limitations, and today’s challenges of UOCs are presented. All the subsets of UOC: FSO communication, underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC), and visible light communication (VLC), with their technology/system developments, potential applications, and limitations are reviewed. The state-of-the-art developments/achievements in (i) FSO channel effects and their mitigation techniques; (ii) radio-over-FSO techniques; (iii) wavelength division multiplexing and sub-carrier multiplexing techniques; (iv) FSO for worldwide interoperability for microwave access applications; (v) space optical satellite communication (SOSC); (vi) UWOC; (vii) photoacoustic communication (PAC); (viii) light-fidelity; (ix) VLC; (x) vehicular VLC (V²LC); and (xi) optical camera communication are reviewed. In addition, the current developments on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (to improve the performance of UOC systems), energy harvesting (for the effective utilization of UOC channels), and near-future communication network scenarios (mandatory for secured broadband digital links) are covered. Finally, in brief, to achieve the full potential of UOC systems, challenges that require immediate research attention are summarized.

The convergence of wireless optical communication (WOC) and radio-frequency (RF) systems is a promising technology that overcomes the shortcomings of standalone communication systems. By incorporating reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) on top of these WOC and RF communication systems, it is possible to circumvent the connection challenges associated with standard line of sight (LOS) communication links. Wireless communication systems with RIS assistance are a promising and evolving technology that enables more efficient and reliable link performance over long distances. The performance of the triple-hop RIS-assisted RF-FSO convergent with the underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) system is investigated in this article. We considered the fading channel Nakagami-m over the RIS-RF connection and the fading channel Gamma-Gamma (GG) over the RIS-FSO and UWOC links. Then, the average bit error rate (ABER) and outage probability are determined using closed-form expressions. The ABER and outage probability performances of the triple-hop communication system is analysed by varying parameters such as turbulence, misalignment fading, and the number of RIS elements. The obtained results demonstrate an improvement in performance for low turbulence, low pointing error, and an increasing number of RIS elements. Additionally, the data demonstrate the accuracy of the analytical results.

The 21st century is defined as the era of technological development. With drastic increase in population, automation is becoming the need of the hour in order to make life more comfortable and easy. Due to the advancement and development in the field of automation and embedded system, the notion of smart car has become very popular. Smart cars are modernizing trends in the traditional automobile industry. Companies across the globe have been investing a huge amount of resources on the production and design of smart cars. Every technological development needs to overcome certain obstacles, and hence, in this paper, a design of a collision detection system for smart car using light fidelity (Li-Fi) and ultrasonic sensor on the Arduino platform is proposed. This design consists of an ultrasonic sensor, an Arduino processor, and a Li-Fi circuit. The ultrasonic is used for measurement of distance between vehicles, and Arduino processes the data and makes decisions accordingly. Data transmission between vehicles is ensued using a Li-Fi transmitter circuit and a Li-Fi receiver circuit. The transmitter circuit is mounted on the tail lights of the leading car and the receiver circuit is mounted on the front side of the car that follows. Using visible light communication, the transmitter circuit transmits the calculated speed and the information is received by the receiver circuit of the second car. On the basis of the information received, the speed of the second car is changed in order to avoid collision. In this paper, a system that can detect and thus avoid collision between vehicles and prevent accidents is proposed and studied.

The flourishing technology in wireless communication -Free space optics (FSO) offers lots of merits over radio frequency (RF) links due to its license free bandwidth, ease of installation, high security features, and viable cost for short distance communication. It's high speed data rate and immunity against Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) makes FSO the emerging technology of today. But, FSO is not always reliable especially during Atmospheric conditions like fog, rain, mist and snow. Hence, in account a new technique of Hybrid FSO/RF, this includes advantages of both FSO and RF technologies. Through this paper intend to perform an extensive analysis of the error and misalignment effects encountered in Line Of Sight (LOS) communication. Pointing error and turbulence effects are the main drawback parameters for our analysis. For this purpose I have taken into consideration different modulation techniques-Binary Phase Shift keying-Subcarrier Intensity Modulation (BPSK-SIM), Differential Phase Shift Keying- Subcarrier Intensity Modulation (DPSK-SIM) communication system with reference to OOK Modulation. The novel expressions for outage probability and BER for both FSO and RF system are derived which uses Rician Channel and 16QAM Modulation scheme alongside Hybrid FSO/RF system for weak, moderate, strong turbulence regimes using Meijer-G Function.

In this paper, the bit error rate (BER) performance of underwater wireless optical communication system employing with M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation is proposed for underwater optical wireless sensor networks (UOWSN) in river meets ocean scenario. The underwater channel degradation effects such as absorption, scattering and oceanic turbulence is taken into account. The oceanic turbulence is modelled by the Gamma-Gamma distribution. The first time, we proposed re-configurable UOWSN for the real time scenario of the river meets the ocean and derived the novel closed form analytical BER expressions of the proposed system over Gamma-Gamma turbulence with attenuation effects. The impact of oceanic turbulence parameters such as the variations of temperature, kinetic energy, viscosity, salinity, link range and the water type of system performance is investigated for river water, mixed water (river and ocean water) and ocean water. The proposed system and the related analysis will be highly useful in UOWSN and the Internet of underwater thing (IoUT) applications.