Student Projects
Introduction
Optical fibre communications are everywhere around us. For years they have transmitted phone and internet under the oceans, and now they are being installed in FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) networks across the country as part of 'The Big Build', by BT's Openreach.
This VDSL+ line promises to give us unrivalled internet speeds of up to 200MB/s when fully operational - exciting news for the UK!
So just how can we transmit information over this link? This myDAQ project aims to design and create a small example of a fully functional system, capable of transmitting text across am optical link.
The same modulation principles can be applied to an RF link, or can be expanded upon to transmit other data such as simple bitmaps or audio tones.
Materials Used:
- myDAQ
- Elenco myProtoboard (can be replaced with a normal breadboard once you have broken out from the myDAQ)
- Jumper Wires
- Bi-colour LED
- Colour Sensor (eg http://proto-pic.co.uk/hdjd-s822-color-sensor-breakout/)
Software
The software has been written using basic LabVIEW functions, so will be completely compatible with the Student Edition, requiring no additional toolkits.
The modulation could have been performed using functions from the Modulation Toolkit, but the implementation I have used will hopefully let you see how it is performed.
