A wireless optical communication system (OWC) has been developed based on a light emitting diode (LED) transmitter and a camera receiver for use in the automotive area. The OWC automotive system will require Mb / s-class data rates and the ability to quickly detect LEDs in an image. The key to achieving this is to improve the capabilities of the image sensor mounted on the camera receiver. In this article, we report on a new OWC system equipped with an optical communication image sensor (OCI), which has recently been developed using CMOS technology. To obtain higher transmission speeds, the OCI employs a specialized "communication pixel (CPx)" capable of responding quickly to variations in optical intensity. In addition, a new fast LED detection technique is formulated, based on a 1-bit flag image that only reacts to high-intensity objects. Communication pixels, ordinary pixel pixels and associated circuits (including 1-bit flag image output circuits) are then integrated into the OCI. This document describes the design, fabrication and capabilities of the OCI as well as the development of the OWC system based on the LED sensor and the image, which has a data rate of 20 Mb / s / pixel without detection of LED and a 15 Mb / S / pixel with a 16.6 ms real-time LED detection.