Application of Expurgated PPM to Indoor Visible Light Communications - Part I: Single-User Systems

Visible light communications (VLC) in indoor environments suffer from the limited bandwidth of LEDs as well as from the inter-symbol interference (ISI) imposed by multipath. In this work, transmission schemes to improve the performance of indoor optical wireless communication (OWC) systems are introduced. Expurgated pulse-position modulation (EPPM) is proposed for this application since it can provide a wide range of peak to average power ratios (PAPR) needed for dimming of the indoor illumination. A correlation decoder used at the receiver is shown to be optimal for indoor VLC systems, which are shot noise and background-light limited. Interleaving applied on EPPM in order to decrease the ISI effect in dispersive VLC channels can significantly decrease the error probability. The proposed interleaving technique makes EPPM a better modulation option compared to PPM for VLC systems or any other dispersive OWC system. An overlapped EPPM pulse technique is proposed to increase the transmission rate when bandwidth-limited white LEDs are used as sources.Comment: Journal of Lightwave Technolog

High-Speed Visible Light Indoor Networks Based on Optical Orthogonal Codes and Combinatorial Designs

Interconnecting devices in an indoor environment using the illumination system and white light emitting diodes (LED) requires adaptive networking techniques that can provide network access for multiple users. Two techniques based on multilevel signaling and optical orthogonal codes (OOC) are explored in this paper in order to provide simultaneous multiple access in an indoor multiuser network. Balanced incomplete block designs (BIBD) are used to construct multilevel symbols for M-ary signaling. Using these multilevel symbols we are able to control the optical peak to average power ratio (PAPR) in the system, and hereby control the dimming level. In the first technique, the M-ary data of each user is first encoded using the OOC codeword that is assigned to that user, and then it is fed into a BIBD encoder to generate a multilevel signal. The second multiple access method uses sub-sets of a BIBD code to apply multilevel expurgated pulse-position modulation (MEPPM) to the data of each user. While the first approach has a larger Hamming distance between the symbols of each user, the latter can provide higher bit-rates for users in VLC systems with bandwidth-limited LEDs

Application of Expurgated PPM to Indoor Visible Light Communications - Part II: Access Networks

Providing network access for multiple users in a visible light communication (VLC) system that utilizes white light emitting diodes (LED) as sources requires new networking techniques adapted to the lighting features. In this paper we introduce two multiple access techniques using expurgated PPM (EPPM) that can be implemented using LEDs and support lighting features such as dimming. Multilevel symbols are used to provide M-ary signaling for multiple users using multilevel EPPM (MEPPM). Using these multiple-access schemes we are able to control the optical peak to average power ratio (PAPR) in the system, and hereby control the dimming level. In the first technique, the M-ary data of each user is first encoded using an optical orthogonal code (OOC) assigned to the user, and the result is fed into a EPPM encoder to generate a multilevel signal. The second multiple access method uses sub-sets of the EPPM constellation to apply MEPPM to the data of each user. While the first approach has a larger Hamming distance between the symbols of each user, the latter can provide higher bit-rates for users in VLC systems using bandwidth-limited LEDs.Comment: Journal of Lightwave Technology. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1308.074

Deep Learning Framework for Wireless Systems: Applications to Optical Wireless Communications

Optical wireless communication (OWC) is a promising technology for future wireless communications owing to its potentials for cost-effective network deployment and high data rate. There are several implementation issues in the OWC which have not been encountered in radio frequency wireless communications. First, practical OWC transmitters need an illumination control on color, intensity, and luminance, etc., which poses complicated modulation design challenges. Furthermore, signal-dependent properties of optical channels raise non-trivial challenges both in modulation and demodulation of the optical signals. To tackle such difficulties, deep learning (DL) technologies can be applied for optical wireless transceiver design. This article addresses recent efforts on DL-based OWC system designs. A DL framework for emerging image sensor communication is proposed and its feasibility is verified by simulation. Finally, technical challenges and implementation issues for the DL-based optical wireless technology are discussed.Comment: To appear in IEEE Communications Magazine, Special Issue on Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Wireless Communication

Optical energy-constrained slot-amplitude modulation for dimmable VLC. Suboptimal detection and performance evaluation

Energy-constrained slot-amplitude modulation (ECSAM) enables light dimming, eliminates light flicker and constrains the peak optical power while providing robust communication links. However, the complexity of the maximum-likelihood (ML) based ECSAM receiver increases exponentially with required spectral efficiency. This paper provides a comprehensive performance evaluation of ECSAM for the indoor visible light communication (VLC) channel with multipath propagation under realistic illumination constraints and imperfect channel estimation. A sub-optimal receiver that employs a slot-by-slot detection algorithm followed by a slot-correction mechanism for reducing the receiver complexity is proposed. Additionally, the method for optimal selection of parameters when designing the signal waveform is presented. The analytical upper bound on the symbol error rate of ECSAM is derived using the union-bound technique. The results show that the error performance of the sub-optimal receiver are comparable to that of the optimal ML receiver. Compared with conventional power or bandwidth efficient VLC modulation techniques such as multiple pulse position modulation (MPPM) and pulse amplitude modulation (PAM), ECSAM provides complete flexibility in modifying the signal constellation for a desired dimming level to maximise the spectral efficiency and provide a robust bit error rate performance especially in the multipath propagation channel induced intersymbol interference

Asymmetrical hybrid optical OFDM for visible light communications with dimming control

This letter proposes an asymmetrical hybrid optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (AHO-OFDM) scheme for dimmable visible light communication systems. In the proposed scheme, either asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM) or pulse-amplitude-modulated discrete multitone (PAM-DMT) signal is inverted and then both the signals are combined for transmission, where pulsewidth modulation is no longer required for dimming control. The power of ACO-OFDM and PAM-DMT signals is adjusted so that the amplitude of the combined AHO-OFDM signal is asymmetrical, which could utilize all the available subcarriers as well as the entire dynamic range of light-emitting diodes with various dimming levels. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme could achieve a wide dimming range with a small throughput fluctuation

On-demand sensor node wake-up using solar panels and visible light communication

To significantly reduce, or eliminate completely, the energy waste caused by the standby (idle) mode of wireless sensor nodes, we propose a novel on-demand wake-up system, which allows the nodes to be put into sleep mode unless their activation is truly necessary. Although there have been many studies proposing RF-based wake-up radio systems, in this work, we develop the first visible light communication (VLC)-based wake-up system. The developed system can extend the existing VLC systems and can be exploited to derive new application areas such as VLC tags. The system uses an off-the-shell indoor solar panel as receptor device of the wake-up signal as well as for energy harvesting purposes, through which it is able to harvest enough energy for its autonomous work. The design, implementation details and the experimental evaluation results are presented, which include flickering characterization and wake-up range evaluations. The results show that the developed system achieve reasonable wake-up distances for indoor environments, mainly where the use of VLC systems are considered.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version