Solar panel as a receiver

Abstract

In recent years solar panels are not only utilized for generating electricity and powering up the electrical devices, but also used as a medium to transfer information in a communication system. Solar panels, which are also photonic devices are getting popularity in various areas such as communication systems, power generations. While other photodetectors need an external power supply to operate, solar panel overcome this limitation by directly converting the optical to electrical signal. This work proposes the design of a receiver model using a solar panel as a photodetector. A reference circuit model is used for the analysis and results of the designed model are compared in terms of frequency response and Signal to Noise ratio. The analysis is done using theoretical calculations and by simulating the model in LTSpice. Signal to Noise ratio (SNR) due to the contribution of both thermal and shot noise also calculated for the reference as well as for the new designed model. To further improve the response at the output, an additional circuit of an equalizer is designed.