Visible Light Communication (VLC)

A special issue of Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732). This special issue belongs to the section "Optical Communication and Network".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2022) | Viewed by 41399

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Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue focuses on visible light communications (VLC). Visible light communication has gained enormous popularity across numerous domains, including short- and long-range communications and positioning and intelligent transport systems, amongst others. In general, it has been positioned as an emerging access network technology that has become an ever-increasing topic of interest over the last two decades.

Several key research challenges have emerged within the VLC domain, including multitechnology network tenancy, high data rates, physical layer security, resource allocation, co-design of high-speed data rates and dimming capabilities, machine-to-machine, underwater links, system network topologies, front-end design, and novel material photoactive components. In terms of global development, standards have been developed that define the minimum operation of VLC networks (IEEE802.11bb, amongst others).

In comparison with conventional RF networks, VLC can offer several advantages, including significantly higher data rates exceeding 10 Gb/s, inherent security as light does not traverse walls and the LED beam can be dedicated to a highly defined area (attocells), license-free operation, and no interference with existing RF systems, which is valuable in airplane and hospital applications. Therefore, the field of VLC promises substantial opportunities for basic and applied research and development. The proposed Special Issue will provide an opportunity for a thorough assessment of the current state of VLC across numerous applications, helping to develop the state-of-the-art.

We welcome submissions on any topic in VLC, with particular interest in the following, nonexclusive, list of principal topics:

  • Multitechnology VLC/x integration and transceiver design;
  • High data rate links, channel modelling, and digital signal processing;
  • Conventional and non-orthogonal modulation, coding, and multiple access;
  • Optical camera communication;
  • Underwater VLC;
  • Intelligent transport systems;
  • Mobility and integration of VLC into wider heterogeneous networks;
  • Applications of neural networks and new architectures;
  • VLC in healthcare sensing applications;
  • Co-illumination/dimming and communication system design;
  • Software-defined VLC, resource allocation, and multiuser system design.

Dr. Chen Chen
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Published Papers (17 papers)

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Editorial

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3 pages, 190 KiB  
Editorial
Special Issue on “Visible Light Communication (VLC)”
by Chen Chen
Photonics 2022, 9(5), 284; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics9050284 - 21 Apr 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1545
Abstract
Due to its appealing advantages, including abundant and unregulated spectrum resources, no electromagnetic interference (EMI) radiation and high security, visible light communication (VLC) using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or laser diodes (LDs) has been envisioned as one of the key enabling technologies for 6G [...] Read more.
Due to its appealing advantages, including abundant and unregulated spectrum resources, no electromagnetic interference (EMI) radiation and high security, visible light communication (VLC) using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or laser diodes (LDs) has been envisioned as one of the key enabling technologies for 6G and Internet of Things (IoT) systems [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))

Research

Jump to: Editorial

17 pages, 2887 KiB  
Article
Propagation Characteristics Comparisons between mmWave and Visible Light Bands in the Conference Scenario
by Baobao Liu, Pan Tang, Jianhua Zhang, Yue Yin, Guangyi Liu and Liang Xia
Photonics 2022, 9(4), 228; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics9040228 - 01 Apr 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2142
Abstract
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications and visible light communications (VLC) are proposed to form hybrid mmWave/VLC systems. Furthermore, channel modeling is the foundation of system design and optimization. In this paper, we compare the propagation characteristics, including path loss, root mean square (RMS) delay spread [...] Read more.
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications and visible light communications (VLC) are proposed to form hybrid mmWave/VLC systems. Furthermore, channel modeling is the foundation of system design and optimization. In this paper, we compare the propagation characteristics, including path loss, root mean square (RMS) delay spread (DS), K-factor, and cluster characteristics, between mmWave and VLC bands based on a measurement campaign and ray tracing simulation in a conference room. We find that the optical path loss (OPL) of VLC channels is highly dependent on the physical size of the photodetectors (PDs). Therefore, an OPL model is further proposed as a function of the distance and size of PDs. We also find that VLC channels suffer faster decay than mmWave channels. Moreover, the smaller RMS DS in VLC bands shows a weaker delay dispersion than mmWave channels. The results of K-factor indicate that line-of-sight (LOS) components mainly account for more power for mmWave in LOS scenarios. However, non-LOS (NLOS) components can be stronger for VLC at a large distance. Furthermore, the K-Power-Means algorithm is used to perform clustering. The fitting cluster number is 5 and 6 for mmWave and VLC channels, respectively. The clustering results reveal the temporal sparsity in mmWave bands and show that VLC channels have a large angular spread. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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12 pages, 4540 KiB  
Article
Low-Complexity Sampling Frequency Offset Estimation and Compensation Scheme for OFDM-Based UWOC System
by Hu Li, Tianyang Chen, Zhijie Wang, Bingyao Cao, Yingchun Li and Junjie Zhang
Photonics 2022, 9(4), 216; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics9040216 - 25 Mar 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2460
Abstract
In this paper, a simple sampling frequency offset (SFO) estimation and compensation scheme based on two phase-conjugated pilots is proposed and experimentally demonstrated in an OFDM-based underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) system. The phase shift is obtained by simple multiplication for phase-conjugated pilots, [...] Read more.
In this paper, a simple sampling frequency offset (SFO) estimation and compensation scheme based on two phase-conjugated pilots is proposed and experimentally demonstrated in an OFDM-based underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) system. The phase shift is obtained by simple multiplication for phase-conjugated pilots, and the results are averaged to perform more accurate phase estimation. The experimental results show that the estimation offset is limited within ±3 ppm when the SFO ranges from −1000 ppm to +1000 ppm over a 1 m tap water channel. Moreover, with the help of the proposed scheme, up to ±300 ppm SFO can be well-compensated with error vector magnitude (EVM) penalties below 1 dB after 1 m underwater transmission. In addition, the results demonstrate that, compared with the ideal case without SFO, our proposed SFO compensation scheme can provide nearly negligible bit error rate (BER) penalties in saltwater with the highly scattering property. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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16 pages, 1400 KiB  
Article
Predistortion Approaches Using Coefficient Approximation and Bidirectional LSTM for Nonlinearity Compensation in Visible Light Communication
by Yun-Joong Park, Joon-Young Kim and Jae-Il Jung
Photonics 2022, 9(3), 198; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics9030198 - 20 Mar 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1826
Abstract
A Light-Emitting Diode (LED) has a nonlinear characteristic, and it contains fundamental limitations for the performance of Visible Light Communication (VLC) systems in indoor environments when using intensity modulation with Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). In this paper, we investigate this nonlinear characteristic [...] Read more.
A Light-Emitting Diode (LED) has a nonlinear characteristic, and it contains fundamental limitations for the performance of Visible Light Communication (VLC) systems in indoor environments when using intensity modulation with Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). In this paper, we investigate this nonlinear characteristic with analysis and proposal. At first, we identified the LED nonlinear characteristics in terms of bit-error performances. After analysis, we propose initial predistortion schemes to mitigate the nonlinearity matters. In the predistortion schemes, the nonlinear distortion compensation model contains predistortion features with the LED inverse characteristics. Considering a Direct-Current-biased Optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM) system, we compared the Bit-Error Rate (BER) performances with and without compensation via simulations. The performance on the LED with the compensation showed LED nonlinearity could significantly improve the bit-error performance. In addition, with consideration that the predistortion model is insufficient to represent LED distortion, we investigated possible opportunities of distortion correction using Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BLSTM), one of the leading deep learning approaches. Its result showed promising improvement of the distortion compensation as well. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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10 pages, 387 KiB  
Article
Neural Network-Based Transceiver Design for VLC System over ISI Channel
by Lin Li, Zhaorui Zhu and Jian Zhang
Photonics 2022, 9(3), 190; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics9030190 - 16 Mar 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1888
Abstract
In this letter, we construct the neural network (NN)-based transceiver to compensate for the varying inter-symbol-interference (ISI) effect in visible light communication (VLC) systems. For processing variable-length sequences, the convolution neural network (CNN) is utilized, and then the residual network structure is further [...] Read more.
In this letter, we construct the neural network (NN)-based transceiver to compensate for the varying inter-symbol-interference (ISI) effect in visible light communication (VLC) systems. For processing variable-length sequences, the convolution neural network (CNN) is utilized, and then the residual network structure is further leveraged at the receiver part to enhance the performance. To cope with varying ISI, the pilot sequence, instead of channel side information (CSI) obtained by an additional module, is integrated into the framework to recover the data sequence directly. Simulation results show that the symbol error rate (SER) performance of the proposed NN-based transceiver can outperform separately designed transceiver schemes and approach the ideal perfect CSI (PCSI) case with a few pilot symbols or even no pilot. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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14 pages, 11858 KiB  
Article
The Performance Improvement of VLC-OFDM System Based on Reservoir Computing
by Bingyao Cao, Kechen Yuan, Hu Li, Shuaihang Duan, Yuwen Li and Yuanjiang Ouyang
Photonics 2022, 9(3), 185; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics9030185 - 14 Mar 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2235
Abstract
Nonlinear effects have been restricting the development of high-speed visible light communication (VLC) systems. Neural network (NN) has become an effective means to alleviate the nonlinearity of a VLC system due to its powerful ability to fit complicated functions. However, the complex training [...] Read more.
Nonlinear effects have been restricting the development of high-speed visible light communication (VLC) systems. Neural network (NN) has become an effective means to alleviate the nonlinearity of a VLC system due to its powerful ability to fit complicated functions. However, the complex training process of traditional NN limits its application in high-speed VLC. Without performance penalty, reservoir computing (RC) simplifies the training process of NN by training only part of the network connection weights, and has become an alternative scheme to NN. For the indoor visible light orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (VLC-OFDM) system, this paper studies the signal recovery effect of the pilot-assisted reservoir computing (PA-RC) frequency domain equalization algorithm. The pilot information is added to the feature engineering of RC to improve the accuracy of channel estimation by traditional least squares (LS) algorithm. The performance of 64 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signal under different transmission rates and peak to peak voltage (Vpp) conditions is demonstrated in the experiments. Compared with the traditional frequency domain equalization algorithms, PA-RC can further expand the Vpp range that meets the 7% hard-decision forward error correction (FEC) limit of 3.8 × 103. At the rate of 240 Mbps, the BER of the system is reduced by about 90%, and the utilization rate of the available frequency band of the system reaches 100%. The results show that PA-RC can effectively improve the transmission performance of VLC system well, and has strong generalization ability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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14 pages, 4529 KiB  
Article
Experimental Demonstration and Simulation of Bandwidth-Limited Underwater Wireless Optical Communication with MLSE
by Jialiang Zhang, Guanjun Gao, Jingwen Li, Ziqi Ma and Yonggang Guo
Photonics 2022, 9(3), 182; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics9030182 - 12 Mar 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2480
Abstract
Underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) is able to provide large bandwidth, low latency, and high security. However, there still exist bandwidth limitations in UWOC systems, with a lack of effective compensation methods. In this paper, we systematically study the bandwidth limitation due to [...] Read more.
Underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) is able to provide large bandwidth, low latency, and high security. However, there still exist bandwidth limitations in UWOC systems, with a lack of effective compensation methods. In this paper, we systematically study the bandwidth limitation due to the transceiver and underwater channel through experiments and simulations, respectively. Experimental results show that by using the 7-tap maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) detection, the maximum bitrate of the simple rectangular shape on–off-keying (OOK) signaling is increased from 2.4 Gb/s to 4 Gb/s over 1 GHz transceiver bandwidth, compared to the conventional symbol-by-symbol detection. For the bandwidth limitation caused by the underwater channel, we simulate the temporal dispersion in the UWOC by adopting a Monte Carlo method with a Fournier–Forand phase function. With MLSE adopted at the receiver, the maximum available bitrate is improved from 0.4 to 0.8 Gb/s in 12 m of harbor water at the threshold of hard-decision forward-error-correction (HD-FEC, 3.8 × 10−3). Moreover, when the bitrate for 0.4 Gb/s 12 m and 0.8 Gb/s 10 m OOK transmission remains unchanged, the power budget can be reduced from 33.8 dBm to 30 dBm and from 27.8 dBm to 23.6 dBm, respectively. The results of both experiments and simulations indicate that MLSE has great potential for improving the performance of bandwidth-limited communication systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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20 pages, 15451 KiB  
Article
Demonstration of Performance Improvement in Multi-User NOMA VLC System Using Joint Transceiver Optimization
by Tong Wu, Zixiong Wang, Shiying Han, Jinlong Yu and Yang Jiang
Photonics 2022, 9(3), 168; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics9030168 - 09 Mar 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1885
Abstract
The bit error ratio (BER) performance of a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) visible light communication (VLC) system is poor due to the unequal distances between adjacent points in the superposition constellation (SC). In this paper, we propose a novel scheme to improve the [...] Read more.
The bit error ratio (BER) performance of a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) visible light communication (VLC) system is poor due to the unequal distances between adjacent points in the superposition constellation (SC). In this paper, we propose a novel scheme to improve the BER performance by adjusting parameters to change the shape of SC at the transmitter and by adjusting the parameters of successive interference cancellation (SIC) decoding at the receiver simultaneously, which is called a SC and SIC adjustment (SC-SIC-A) scheme. For multi-user NOMA VLC system, we derive the closed-form BER expression for each user, where the modulation format is four-quadrature amplitude modulation. According to the derived BER expressions, we formulate an optimization problem that minimizes the average BER for all users by adjusting the obtained parameters of SC and SIC decoding via differential evolution algorithm. The improvement of capacity performance is investigated consequently. In order to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed SC-SIC-A scheme, we carried out theoretical analysis, Monte Carlo simulation and experiments of two-user and three-user NOMA VLC systems. Results show that the SC-SIC-A scheme outperforms the existing schemes in NOMA VLC system, where the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) reductions to achieve BER of 103 are 1.3 dB and 0.8 dB for both users in the two-user NOMA VLC system, respectively, and the SNR reductions to achieve BER of 103 are 5.7 dB, 4.3 dB and 4.6 dB for all users in the three-user NOMA VLC system, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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13 pages, 1511 KiB  
Article
An Indoor Visible Light Positioning System for Multi-Cell Networks
by Roger Alexander Martínez-Ciro, Francisco Eugenio López-Giraldo, José Martín Luna-Rivera and Atziry Magaly Ramírez-Aguilera
Photonics 2022, 9(3), 146; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics9030146 - 01 Mar 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2489
Abstract
Indoor positioning systems based on visible light communication (VLC) using white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) have been widely studied in the literature. In this paper, we present an indoor visible-light positioning (VLP) system based on red–green–blue (RGB) LEDs and a frequency division multiplexing (FDM) [...] Read more.
Indoor positioning systems based on visible light communication (VLC) using white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) have been widely studied in the literature. In this paper, we present an indoor visible-light positioning (VLP) system based on red–green–blue (RGB) LEDs and a frequency division multiplexing (FDM) scheme. This system combines the functions of an FDM scheme at the transmitters (RGB LEDs) and a received signal strength (RSS) technique to estimate the receiver position. The contribution of this work is two-fold. First, a new VLP system with RGB LEDs is proposed for a multi-cell network. Here, the RGB LEDs allow the exploitation of the chromatic space to transmit the VLP information. In addition, the VLC receiver leverages the responsivity of a single photodiode for estimating the FDM signals in RGB lighting channels. A second contribution is the derivation of an expression to calculate the optical power received by the photodiode for each incident RGB light. To this end, we consider a VLC channel model that includes both line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) components. The fast Fourier transform (FFT) estimates the powers and frequencies of the received FDM signal. The receiver uses these optical signal powers in the RSS-based localization application to calculate the Euclidean distances and the frequencies for the RGB LED position. Subsequently, the receiver’s location is estimated using the Euclidean distances and RGB LED positions via a trilateration algorithm. Finally, Monte Carlo simulations are performed to evaluate the error performance of the proposed VLP system in a multi-cell scenario. The results show a high positioning accuracy performance for different color points. The average positioning error for all chromatic points was less than 2.2 cm. These results suggest that the analyzed VLP system could be used in application scenarios where white light balance or luminaire color planning are also the goals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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11 pages, 2105 KiB  
Article
Pairwise Coded mCAP with Chaotic Dual-Mode Index Modulation for Secure Bandlimited VLC Systems
by Yungui Nie, Wei Zhang, Yanbing Yang, Xiong Deng, Min Liu and Chen Chen
Photonics 2022, 9(3), 141; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics9030141 - 27 Feb 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2062
Abstract
In this paper, for the first time, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel pairwise coding (PWC)-based multiband carrierless amplitude and phase (mCAP) modulation with chaotic dual-mode index modulation (DM) for secure bandlimited visible light communication (VLC) systems. The combination of [...] Read more.
In this paper, for the first time, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel pairwise coding (PWC)-based multiband carrierless amplitude and phase (mCAP) modulation with chaotic dual-mode index modulation (DM) for secure bandlimited visible light communication (VLC) systems. The combination of mCAP and DM can sustain a higher spectral efficiency (SE) compared with mCAP with conventional index modulation (IM), while PWC can be employed to efficiently mitigate the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) imbalance caused by the low-pass frequency response of light emitting diodes (LEDs). Moreover, the DM is enhanced by a two-dimensional (2D) chaotic encryption scheme to guarantee the security of the useful information in VLC systems. Simulation and experimental results successfully verify the superiority of the proposed PWC-based mCAP-DM scheme with two-level chaotic encryption over other benchmark schemes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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20 pages, 2770 KiB  
Article
An Optimal Scheme for the Number of Mirrors in Vehicular Visible Light Communication via Mirror Array-Based Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces
by Ling Zhan, Hong Zhao, Wenhui Zhang and Jiming Lin
Photonics 2022, 9(3), 129; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics9030129 - 24 Feb 2022
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2219
Abstract
The optimization problem of the number of mirrors under energy efficiency (EE) maximization for vehicular visible light communication (VVLC) via mirror array-based intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is investigated. Under considering that the formulated optimization problem is subject to the real and non-negative of [...] Read more.
The optimization problem of the number of mirrors under energy efficiency (EE) maximization for vehicular visible light communication (VVLC) via mirror array-based intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is investigated. Under considering that the formulated optimization problem is subject to the real and non-negative of the transmitted signal, the maximum power consumption satisfied luminous ability and eye safety, the minimum achievable rate, and the required bit error ratio (BER), EE is proved to be a unimodal function of the number of mirrors. Then, the binary search-conditional iteration (BSCI) algorithm is proposed for quickly finding the optimal number of mirrors with maximum EE. Numerical results demonstrate that fewer mirrors can obtain the maximum EE, and the computational complexity of the BSCI algorithm is reduced by 105 orders of magnitude, compared with the Bubble Sort method. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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13 pages, 4474 KiB  
Article
Experimental Demonstration of High-Sensitivity Underwater Optical Wireless Communication Based on Photocounting Receiver
by Chao Li, Zichen Liu, Daomin Chen, Xiong Deng, Fulong Yan, Siqi Li and Zhijia Hu
Photonics 2021, 8(11), 467; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics8110467 - 22 Oct 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1883
Abstract
In this paper, we propose a high-sensitivity long-reach underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) system with an Mbps-scale data rate. Using a commercial blue light-emitting diode (LED) source, a photon counting receiver, and return-to-zero on–off keying modulation, a receiver sensitivity of −70 dBm at [...] Read more.
In this paper, we propose a high-sensitivity long-reach underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) system with an Mbps-scale data rate. Using a commercial blue light-emitting diode (LED) source, a photon counting receiver, and return-to-zero on–off keying modulation, a receiver sensitivity of −70 dBm at 7% FEC limit is successfully achieved for a 5 Mbps intensity modulation direct detection UOWC system over 10 m underwater channel. For 1 Mbps and 2 Mbps data rates, the receiver sensitivity is enhanced to −76 dBm and −74 dBm, respectively. We further investigate the system performance under different water conditions: first type of seawater (c = 0.056 m−1), second type (c = 0.151 m−1), and third type (c = 0.398 m−1). The maximum distance of the 2 Mbps signal can be extended up to 100 m in the first type of seawater. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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11 pages, 3299 KiB  
Communication
Dual-Branch Pre-Distorted Enhanced ADO-OFDM for Full-Duplex Underwater Optical Wireless Communication System
by Zixian Wei, Yibin Li, Zhaoming Wang, Junbin Fang and Hongyan Fu
Photonics 2021, 8(9), 368; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics8090368 - 01 Sep 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1669
Abstract
In this paper, dual-branch pre-distorted enhanced asymmetrically clipped direct current (DC) biased optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (PEADO-OFDM) for underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) is firstly proposed and simulated. The performances of PEADO-OFDM on the underwater optical channel model (UOCM) are analyzed and [...] Read more.
In this paper, dual-branch pre-distorted enhanced asymmetrically clipped direct current (DC) biased optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (PEADO-OFDM) for underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC) is firstly proposed and simulated. The performances of PEADO-OFDM on the underwater optical channel model (UOCM) are analyzed and further compared with the typical ADO-OFDM. Using the Monte Carlo method for the modeling of UOCM, we adopt a double-gamma function to represent three different water qualities including clear, coastal and harbor waters. The full-duplex architecture enables the removal of Hermitian symmetry (HS) from conventional optical OFDM and can increase the spectral efficiency at the cost of hardware complexity. A new PEADO-OFDM transmitter is also proposed to reduce the complexity of the transmitter. The simulation results exhibit that our proposed dual-branch PEADO-OFDM scheme outperforms the typical ADO-OFDM scheme in spectral efficiency, bit error rate (BER) and stability over the underwater channels of three different water qualities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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11 pages, 315 KiB  
Article
Hybrid Adaptive Bias OFDM-Based IM/DD Visible Light Communication System
by Huandong Hong and Zhengquan Li
Photonics 2021, 8(7), 257; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics8070257 - 05 Jul 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2108
Abstract
Conventional optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) schemes, such as adaptively biased optical OFDM (ABO-OFDM) and hybrid asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (HACO-OFDM), are unable to tap all the resources of the subcarriers and only achieve relatively high power efficiency. In this paper, a [...] Read more.
Conventional optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) schemes, such as adaptively biased optical OFDM (ABO-OFDM) and hybrid asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (HACO-OFDM), are unable to tap all the resources of the subcarriers and only achieve relatively high power efficiency. In this paper, a hybrid adaptive bias optical OFDM (HABO-OFDM) scheme for visible light communication (VLC) is proposed to improve spectral efficiency and power efficiency. In the proposed HABO-OFDM scheme, different optical OFDM components are combined for transmission at the same time, and the adaptive bias is designed to ensure the non-negativity, as well as obtaining significantly high power efficiency. Meanwhile, the implementation complexity of the HABO-OFDM receiver is notably lower than the conventional superimposed optical OFDM schemes. Simulation results show that the proposed HABO-OFDM scheme outperforms ABO-OFDM and HACO-OFDM in terms of both peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR) and power efficiency. The PAPR performance of HABO-OFDM is about 3.2 dB lower than that of HACO-OFDM and 1.7 dB lower than that of ABO-OFDM. Moreover, we can see that the Eb(elec)/N0 required for HABO-OFDM to reach the BER target is lower than the other two schemes at the Bit rate/Normalized bandwidth range of 3.5 to 8.75, which means that the power efficiency of HABO-OFDM is higher in this range. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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12 pages, 10063 KiB  
Article
Hybrid POF/VLC Links Based on a Single LED for Indoor Communications
by Juan Andrés Apolo, Beatriz Ortega and Vicenç Almenar
Photonics 2021, 8(7), 254; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics8070254 - 02 Jul 2021
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3967
Abstract
A hybrid fiber/wireless link based on a single visible LED and free of opto-electronic intermediate conversion stages has been demonstrated for indoor communications. This paper shows the main guidelines for proper coupling in fiber/air/detector interfaces. Experimental demonstration has validated the design results with [...] Read more.
A hybrid fiber/wireless link based on a single visible LED and free of opto-electronic intermediate conversion stages has been demonstrated for indoor communications. This paper shows the main guidelines for proper coupling in fiber/air/detector interfaces. Experimental demonstration has validated the design results with very good agreement between geometrical optics simulation and received optical power measurements. Different signal bandwidths and modulation formats, i.e., QPSK, 16-QAM, and 64-QAM, have been transmitted over 1.5 m polymer optical fiber (POF) and 1.5 m free-space optics (FSO). Throughputs up to 294 Mb/s using a 64-QAM signal have been demonstrated using a commercial LED, which paves the way for massive deployment in industrial applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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11 pages, 297 KiB  
Article
Deep Learning-Assisted Index Estimator for Generalized LED Index Modulation OFDM in Visible Light Communication
by Manh Le-Tran and Sunghwan Kim
Photonics 2021, 8(5), 168; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/photonics8050168 - 19 May 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2210
Abstract
In this letter, we present the first attempt of active light-emitting diode (LED) indexes estimating for the generalized LED index modulation optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (GLIM-OFDM) in visible light communication (VLC) system by using deep learning (DL). Instead of directly estimating the transmitted [...] Read more.
In this letter, we present the first attempt of active light-emitting diode (LED) indexes estimating for the generalized LED index modulation optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (GLIM-OFDM) in visible light communication (VLC) system by using deep learning (DL). Instead of directly estimating the transmitted binary bit sequence with DL, the active LEDs at the transmitter are estimated to maintain acceptable complexity and improve the performance gain compared with those of previously proposed receivers. Particularly, a novel DL-based estimator termed index estimator-based deep neural network (IE-DNN) is proposed, which can employ three different DNN structures with fully connected layers (FCL) or convolution layers (CL) to recover the indexes of active LEDs in a GLIM-OFDM system. By using the received signal dataset generated in simulations, the IE-DNN is first trained offline to minimize the index error rate (IER); subsequently, the trained model is deployed for the active LED index estimation and signal demodulation of the GLIM-OFDM system. The simulation results show that the IE-DNN significantly improves the IER and bit error rate (BER) compared with those of conventional detectors with acceptable run time. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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13 pages, 1992 KiB  
Article
Constant Transmission Efficiency Dimming Control Scheme for VLC Systems
by Jia-Ning Guo, Jian Zhang, Gang Xin and Lin Li
Photonics 2021, 8(1), 7; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8010007 - 31 Dec 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2123
Abstract
As a novel mode of indoor wireless communication, visible light communication (VLC) should consider the illumination functions besides the primary communication function. Dimming control is one of the most crucial illumination functions for VLC systems. However, the transmission efficiency of most proposed dimming [...] Read more.
As a novel mode of indoor wireless communication, visible light communication (VLC) should consider the illumination functions besides the primary communication function. Dimming control is one of the most crucial illumination functions for VLC systems. However, the transmission efficiency of most proposed dimming control schemes changes as the dimming factor changes. A block coding-based dimming control scheme has been proposed for constant transmission efficiency VLC systems, but there is still room for improvement in dimming range and error performance. In this paper, we propose a dimming control scheme based on extensional constant weight codeword sets to achieve constant transmission efficiency. Meanwhile, we also provide a low implementation complexity decoding algorithm for the scheme. Finally, comparisons show that the proposed scheme can provide a wider dimming range and better error performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visible Light Communication (VLC))
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