A Comprehensive Survey on Wide-Angle Optical Wireless Communication

Optical wireless communication (OWC) has emerged as a vital technology to meet the growing demand for high-speed, secure, and interference-free wireless connectivity. Wide-angle OWC systems extend the communication coverage by utilizing beams with large half power half angles (HPHA) and receivers with broad fields of view (FOV). This comprehensive survey explores the fundamental principles behind HPHA and FOV, their impact on system performance, and the need for optimizing these parameters to balance coverage, signal strength, and robustness. The study reviews techniques to mitigate geometric attenuation and signal distortion challenges inherent in wide-angle propagation, including advanced optical designs such as metasurfaces and lens arrays. Applications spanning from Internet of Things (IoT) and indoor positioning to vehicular and underwater communications are analyzed, highlighting how wide-angle OWC supports flexible, multi-user environments without requiring complex tracking systems. Limitations such as channel attenuation, noise, and interference are discussed along with strategies for system optimization to enhance data rates and reliability. This survey establishes a solid foundation for future research and development of efficient, scalable wide-angle OWC systems tailored to diverse real-world scenarios.