Hybrid Free-Space Optical and Visible Light Communication Link

V součastnosti bezdrátové optické komunikace (optical wireless communication, OWC) získávají širokou pozornost jako vhodný doplněk ke komunikačním přenosům v rádiovém pásmu. OWC nabízejí několik výhod včetně větší šířky přenosového pásma, neregulovaného frekvenčního pásma či odolnosti vůči elektromagnetickému rušení. Tato práce se zabývá návrhem OWC systémů pro připojení koncových uživatelů. Samotná realizace spojení může být provedena za pomoci různých variant bezdrátových technologií, například pomocí OWC, kombinací různých OWC technologií nebo hybridním rádio-optickým spojem. Za účelem propojení tzv. poslední míle je analyzován optický bezvláknový spoj (free space optics, FSO). Tato práce se dále zabývá analýzou přenosových vlastností celo-optického více skokového spoje s důrazem na vliv atmosférických podmínek. V dnešní době mnoho uživatelů tráví čas ve vnitřních prostorech kanceláří či doma, kde komunikace ve viditelném spektru (visible light communication, VLC) poskytuje lepší přenosové parametry pokrytí než úzce směrové FSO. V rámci této práce byla odvozena a experimentálně ověřena závislost pro bitovou chybovost přesměrovaného (relaying) spoje ve VLC. Pro propojení poskytovatele datavých služeb s koncovým uživatelem může být výhodné zkombinovat více přenosových technologií. Proto je navržen a analyzovám systém pro překonání tzv. problému poslední míle a posledního metru kombinující hybridní FSO a VLC technologie.The field of optical wireless communications (OWC) has recently attracted significant attention as a complementary technology to radio frequency (RF). OWC systems offer several advantages including higher bandwidth, an unregulated spectrum, resistance to electromagnetic interference and a high order of reusability. The thesis focuses on the deployment and analyses of end-user interconnections using the OWC systems. Interconnection can be established by many wireless technologies, for instance, by a single OWC technology, a combination of OWC technologies, or by hybrid OWC/RF links. In order to establish last mile outdoor interconnection, a free-space optical (FSO) has to be investigated. In this thesis, the performance of all-optical multi-hop scenarios is analyzed under atmospheric conditions. However, nowadays, many end users spend much time in indoor environments where visible light communication (VLC) technology can provide better transmission parameters and, significantly, better coverage. An analytical description of bit error rate for relaying VLC schemes is derived and experimentally verified. Nonetheless, for the last mile, interconnection of a provider and end users (joint outdoor and indoor connection) can be advantageous when combining multiple technologies. Therefore, a hybrid FSO/VLC system is proposed and analyzed for the interconnection of the last mile and last meter bottleneck

Spectrum-Efficient Triple-Layer Hybrid Optical OFDM for IM/DD-Based Optical Wireless Communications

In this paper, a triple-layer hybrid optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (THO-OFDM) for intensity modulation with direct detection (IM/DD) systems with a high spectral efficiency is proposed. We combine N-point asymmetrically clipped optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ACO-OFDM), N/2-point ACO-OFDM, and N/2-point pulse amplitude modulated discrete multitoned (PAM-DMT) in a single frame for simultaneous transmission. The time- and frequency-domain demodulation methods are introduced by fully exploiting the special structure of the proposed THO-OFDM. Theoretical analysis show that, the proposed THO-OFDM can reach the spectral efficiency limit of the conventional layered ACO-OFDM (LACO-OFDM). Simulation results demonstrate that, the time-domain receiver offers improved bit error rate (BER) performance compared with the frequency-domain with ∼40% reduced computation complexity when using 512 subcarriers. Furthermore, we show a 3 dB improvement in the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) compared with LACO-OFDM for the same three layers

On the Implementation of Carrierless Amplitude and Phase Modulation in Visible Light Communication

OAPA Carrierless amplitude and phase modulation (CAP) is one of the spectrally efficient schemes that has been proposed to tackle the limited modulation bandwidth challenge in visible light communication (VLC). The VLC technology leverages existing lighting fixtures to provide wireless data communication, which makes it attractive for many applications. However, the commercially available white LEDs that are predominantly employed in VLC offer low modulation bandwidths that limit the achievable data rate. Thus, CAP modulation is employed to improve achievable data rate, primarily due to its implementation simplicity and high spectral efficiency. The CAP scheme also has a special feature in that it can be implemented as a single band or a multiband scheme which provides design flexibility. This paper presents an in-depth study of the implementation of CAP in LED-based VLC systems, highlighting the unique features that make it specially suited for VLC applications. Furthermore, a comprehensive investigation is carried out regarding the design parameters of the CAP modulation transceiver, its benefits and techniques to mitigate the challenges of CAP-based VLC systems

An overview of outdoor visible light communications

Abstract: In visible light communications (VLC) technology, the outdoor applications are less explored when compared to those indoors. This is due to the fact that: (i) the dual use of light emitting diodes (LEDs) is not always practicable in the outdoor VLC environment; (ii) the level of interference and noise is considerably higher in outdoor VLC; (iii) many other communication technologies are available to be used which, due to their specific characteristics, adapt better to the outdoor environment when compared to VLC technology. Nevertheless, several outdoor VLC applications have been identified. They include and are not limited to building-to-building (B2B), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and road-to-vehicle (R2V) communications. Deploying light fidelity (Li-Fi) using street and park lights is also feasible. Finally, some applications exploit the ability of solar panels to simultaneously harvest the electrical energy and serve as a VLC receiving antenna. The implementation of these communication systems faces lots of challenges. Most of them are related to environmental factors such as fog, rain, sunlight, haze, snow, dust, and atmospheric disturbances. Some challenges are based on parameters such as the geometrical aspect of the light diffusion, which is Lambertian in most cases. These challenges contribute to lower interest in outdoor VLC to date. However, the environment presents several opportunities. In this article, we explore the outdoor VLC environment, review and present some promising applications selected from the literature. Furthermore, we underline likely research opportunities based on the actual state-of-the-art and our outdoor VLC characterisation experiments

Enhanced carrierless amplitude and phase modulation for optical communication systems

This thesis develops and investigates enhanced techniques for carrierless amplitude and phase modulation (CAP) in optical communication systems. The CAP scheme is studied as the physical layer modulation technique due to its implementation simplicity and versatility, that enables its implementation as a single carrier (CAP) or multi-carrier technique (m-CAP). The effect of timing jitter on the error performance of CAP is first investigated. The investigation indicates that synchronization is a critical requirement for CAP receiver and as a result, a novel low-complexity synchronization algorithm is developed with experimental demonstration for CAP-based visible light communication (VLC) systems. To further reduce the overall link complexity, a fractionally-spaced equalizer (FSE) is considered to mitigate the effects of inter-symbol interference (ISI) and timing jitter. The FSE implementation, which eliminates the need for a separate synchronization block, is shown through simulation and VLC experimental demonstration to outperform symbol-spaced equalizers (SSE) that are reported in literature for CAP-based VLC systems. Furthermore, in this thesis, spectrally-efficient index modulation techniques are developed for CAP. The proposed techniques can be divided into two broad groups, namely spatial index CAP (S-CAP) and subband index CAP (SI-CAP). The proposed spatial index techniques leverage the fact that in VLC, multiple optical sources are often required. The spatial CAP (S-CAP) transmits CAP signal through one of Nt available LEDs. It is developed to reduce equalization requirement and improve the spectral efficiency of the conventional CAP. In addition to the bits transmitted through the CAP symbol, the S-CAP encodes additional bits on the indexing/spatial location of the LEDs. The generalised S-CAP (GS-CAP) is further developed to relax the S-CAP limitation of using a single LED per symbol duration. In addition to the S-CAP scheme, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques of repetitive-coded CAP (RC-CAP) and spatial multiplexing CAP (SMux-CAP) are investigated for CAP. Low-complexity detectors are also developed for the MIMO schemes. A key challenge of the MIMO schemes is that they suffer power penalty when channel gains are similar, which occur when the optical sources are closely located. The use of multiple receivers and power factor imbalance (PFI) techniques are proposed to mitigate this power penalty. The techniques result in significant improvement in the power efficiency of the MIMO schemes and ensure that the spectral efficiency gain is obtained with little power penalty. Finally, subband index CAP (SI-CAP) is developed to improve the spectral efficiency of m-CAP and reduce its peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). The SI-CAP encodes additional information bits on the selection of ‘active’ subbands of m-CAP and only modulate data symbols on these ‘active’ subbands. The error performance of the proposed SI-CAP is evaluated analytically and verified with computer-based simulations. The SI-CAP technique is also experimented for both VLC and step-index plastic optical fibre (SI-POF) communication links. The experimental results show that for a fixed power efficiency, SI-CAP achieves higher data rate compared tom-CAP. For example, at a representative bit error rate (BER) of 10-5, the SI-CAP achieves a data rate and power efficiency gain of 26:5 Mb/s and 2:5 dB, respectively when compared to m-CAP. In addition, an enhanced SI-CAP (eSI-CAP) is developed to address the complexity that arises in SI-CAP at higher modulation order. The results of the experimental demonstrations in VLC and 10 m SI-POF link shows that when compared with m-CAP, eSI-CAP consistently yields a data rate improvement of between 7% and 13% for varying values of the SNR

Power and spectrally efficient integrated high-speed LED drivers for visible light communication

Recent trends in mobile broadband indicates that the available radio frequency (RF) spectrum will not be enough to support the data requirements of the immediate future. Visible light communication, which uses visible spectrum to transmit wirelessly could be a potential solution to the RF ’Spectrum Crunch’. Thus there is growing interest all over the world in this domain with support from both academia and industry. Visible light communication( VLC) systems make use of light emitting diodes (LEDs), which are semiconductor light sources to transmit information. A number of demonstrators at different data capacity and link distances has been reported in this area. One of the key problems holding this technology from taking off is the unavailability of power efficient, miniature LED drive schemes. Reported demonstrators, mostly using either off the shelf components or arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs) to drive the LEDs have only started to address this problem by adopting integrated drivers designed for driving lighting installations for communications. The voltage regulator based drive schemes provide high power efficiency (> 90 %) but it is difficult to realise the fast switching required to achieve the Mbps or Gbps data rates needed for modern wireless communication devices. In this work, we are exploiting CMOS technology to realise an integrated LED driver for VLC. Instead of using conventional drive schemes (digital to analogue converter (DAC) + power amplifier or voltage regulators), we realised a current steering DAC based LED driver operating at high currents and sampling rates whilst maintaining power efficiency. Compared to a commercial AWG or discrete LED driver, circuit realised utilisng complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology has resulted in area reduction (29mm2). We realised for the first time a multi-channel CMOS LED driver capable of operating up to a 500 MHz sample rate at an output current of 255 mA per channel and >70% power efficiency. We were able to demonstrate the flexibility of the driver by employing it to realise VLC links using micro LEDs and commercial LEDs. Data rates up to 1 Gbps were achieved using this system employing a multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) scheme. We also demonstrated the wavelength division multiplexing ability of the driver using a red/green/blue commercial LED. The first integrated digital to light converter (DLC), where depending on the input code, a proportional number of LEDs are turned ON, realising a data converter in the optical domain, is also an output from this research. In addition, we propose a differential optical drive scheme where two output branches of a current DAC are used to drive two LEDs achieving higher link performance and power efficiency compared to single LED drive