Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering2024-11-0920202367-337010.1007/978-3-030-24986-1_282-s2.0-85069487702https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/3281Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are expected to utilize optical wireless technologies alongside radio frequency technologies for reliable, secure and high bandwidth communications. While terrestrial and atmospheric laser-based solutions in the past have achieved physically secure communication with very complex beam tracking/pointing mechanisms with large and costly telescopes, such systems are neither suitable nor necessary for medium-range (<100 m) commercial UAV communications. With the proliferation of low-cost solid-state lighting equipment and visible band photodetectors, visible light communications (VLC) offer a low-size-weight-and-power (SWaP) and low-cost solution. This paper presents a novel low-SWaP and low-cost transceiver for physically secure VLC in medium-range commercial UAV applications. Full implementation details for a proof-of-concept prototype built completely with off-the-shelf components are also reported.pdfOptical linksFree-space optical communicationModulating retro-reflectorBook Chapterhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24986-1_28N/ANOIR02254