The IEEE 802.15.13 Standard for Optical Wireless Communications in Industry 4.0

Multiple standardization activities have been started for optical wireless communications. In this paper, we summarize the ongoing work in the IEEE P802.15.13 task group. The goal is to make optical wireless communication usable for specialty applications, e.g., in industrial wireless networks. The current draft standard defines a medium access control (MAC) sublayer, supporting deterministic channel access for low latency/jitter through dynamic time division multiple access (TDMA), distributed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) operation for increased robustness, as well as two physical layers for high spectral efficiency and long reach, respectively. Currently, the specification is being finalized for publication. It is prepared for future updates to add support for the group of time-sensitive networking (TSN) standards. In this paper, we provide an overview over the upcoming standard.