Patent ID: 8923705

Claim:
A Poisson-based communication system comprising: a receiver comprising: a photodetector that receives photons and generates pulses based on the received photons; a sampling event counter that counts the number of generated pulses by the photodetector; and a demodulator configured to: sample the sampling event counter at predetermined time intervals to determine an occurrence of a first state when light pulse energy has been transmitted by a transmitter and received by the photodetector and an occurrence of a second state when light pulse energy has not been transmitted by the transmitter and received by the photodetector; decode a symbol waveform to recover message data or a waveform encoded in the symbol waveform that is based on a pattern of the occurrences of the first state and the second state over a plurality of predetermined time intervals, wherein the symbol waveform is based on one of a return to zero (RZ) format; and compute a matched filter response from count values of the sampling event counter and uses the shape of this reponse to provide feedback to the sampling event counter to synchronize the sampling of the sampling event counter to an incoming symbol waveform corresponding to a pattern of occurences of the first state and second states to maximize received signal energy counts from the sampling event counter.