Patent ID: 8837949

Claim:
An optical communication apparatus, comprising: a housing having an aperture for receiving optical communication signals; a lens disposed within the aperture and configured to direct the optical communication signals to locations in a backplane according to their respective angles of incidence; a pixel array situated in the backplane and optically coupled to the lens, each pixel in the pixel array comprising an optical detector and an active optical source, wherein: the optical detector of each pixel converts an optical signal to a corresponding electric signal, the active optical source of each pixel converts an electric signal to a corresponding optical signal, and the optical detector and the active optical source are interleaved on a same plane to form the pixel array, each pixel in the pixel array is configured to send and receive the optical communication signals at a unique angle of incidence; a memory configured to store registration information comprising associations between pixels in the pixel array and one or more senders in an optical network; and a processor coupled to the memory and configured to determine, from an inbound electric signal corresponding to an inbound optical signal received at a first pixel in the pixel array, whether an identifier of the inbound electric signal matches a sender associated with the first pixel based on the registration information, the processor being further configured to generate, for the active optical source of a second pixel in the pixel array, an outbound electric signal in response to determining that the identifier of the inbound electric signal matches the registration information.