Cylindrical vector beam shaping techniques for optical wireless communications

Optical wireless communications (OWCs) have seen rapid progress in recent decades.Cylindrical vector beam shaping has been proven as a promising way to further improve the performance and realize multiple functions for OWCs.In this paper, we provide a review of recent progress in two popular cylindrical vector beam shaping techniques, namely, few-mode-and orbital angular momentum (OAM)-based beam shaping and their corresponding digital signal processing technologies including impairment mitigation and advanced coding for OWCs.