A review of gallium nitride LEDs for multi-gigabit-per-second visible light data communications

The field of visible light communications (VLC) has gained significant interest over the last decade, in both fibre and free-space embodiments. In fibre systems, the availability of low cost plastic optical fibre (POF) that is compatible with visible data communications has been a key enabler. In free-space applications, the availability of hundreds of THz of the unregulated spectrum makes VLC attractive for wireless communications. This paper provides an overview of the recent developments in VLC systems based on gallium nitride (GaN) light-emitting diodes (LEDs), covering aspects from sources to systems. The state-of-the-art technology enabling bandwidth of GaN LEDs in the range of >400 MHz is explored. Furthermore, advances in key technologies, including advanced modulation, equalisation, and multiplexing that have enabled free-space VLC data rates beyond 10 Gb/s are also outlined

Study, analysis and application of Optical OFDM, Single Carrier (SC) and MIMO in Intensity Modulation Direct Detection (IM/DD)

With the rapid growth of wireless data demands and saturation of radio frequency (RF) capacity, visible light communication (VLC) has become a promising candidate to complement conventional RF communication, especially for indoor short range applications. However the performance of the system depends on the propagation and type of system used. An optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (O-OFDM) together with multiple input multiple output (MIMO) in different scenario and modulation techniques are studied in the thesis. A novel optical wireless communication (OWC) multi-cell system with narrow field of view (FOV) is studied. In this system the intensity modulated beam from four light sources are used for communication. The system allows beams to be concentrated in specific areas of the room to serve multiple mobile devices with low interference and hence increase system capacity. The performance of asymmetrically clipped optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ACO-OFDM), direct current biased optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM) and single carrier (SC) modulation are then compared in this system considering single user and multiusers scenarios. The performance of the multi-cell is compared with single cell with wide FOV. It is shown that the capacity for multi-cell system increases with the number of users to 4 times the single user capacity. Also the findings show that multi-cell system with narrow beams can outperform a single wide beam system in terms of coverage area and hence average throughput of about 2.7 times the single wide beam system capacity. One of the impairments in line of sight (LOS) OWC systems is coverage which degrades the performance. A mobile receiver with angular diversity detectors in MIMO channels is studied. The objective is to improve the rank of the channel matrix and hence system throughput. Repetition coding (RC), spatial multiplexing (SMP) and spatial modulation (SM) concepts are used to evaluate throughput across multiple locations in a small room scenario. A novel adaptive spatial modulation (ASM) which is capable of combating channel rank deficiency is devised. Since the receiver is mobile, the channel gains are low in some locations of the room due to the lack of LOS paths between transmitters and receivers. To combat the situation adaptive modulation and per antenna rate control (PARC) is employed to maximise spectral efficiency. The throughputs for fixed transmitters and receivers are compared with the oriented/inclined detectors for different cases. Angular diversity detectors offer a better throughput improvement than the state of the art vertical detectors, for example in ASM angular diversity receiver gives throughput of about 1.6 times that of vertical detectors. Also in SMP the angular detectors offer throughput about 1.4 times that of vertical detectors. SMP gives the best performance compared to RC, SM and ASM, for example SMP gives throughput about 2.5 times that of RC in both vertical detectors and angular diversity receivers. Again SMP gives throughput about 6 times that of SM in both vertical detectors and angular diversity receivers. Also SMP provides throughput about 2 times that of ASM in both vertical detectors and angular diversity receivers. ASM exhibit improvement in throughput about average factor of 3.5 times SM performance in both vertical detectors and angular diversity detectors. As the performance of the system may be jeopardized by obstructions, specular and diffuse reflection models for indoor OWC systems using a mobile receiver with angular diversity detectors in MIMO channels are considered. The target is to improve the MIMO throughput compared to vertically oriented detectors by exploiting reflections from different reflecting surfaces in the room. The throughput across multiple locations in the small room by using RC, SMP and SM approaches is again evaluated. The results for LOS only channels against LOS with specular or diffuse reflection conditions, for both vertical and angular oriented receivers are then compared. The results show that exploiting specular and diffuse reflections provide significant improvements in link performance. For example the reflection coefficient (α) of 0.9 and the antenna separation of 0.6 m, RC diffuse model shows throughput improvement of about 1.8 times that of LOS for both vertical detectors and angular diversity receivers. SM diffuse model shows throughput improvement of about 3 times that of LOS for both vertical detectors and angular diversity receivers. ASM diffuse model shows throughput improvement of about 2 times that of LOS for both vertical detectors and angular diversity receivers. SMP diffuse model shows throughput improvement of about 1.5 times that of LOS for both vertical detectors and angular diversity receiver

Performance Evaluation of Multi-gigabit Indoor Visible Light Communication System

This paper presents a performance evaluation of a mobile multi-gigabit visible light communication (VLC) system in two different environments. The VLC channel characteristics and links were evaluated under the diverse situations of an empty room and a room with very strong shadowing effects resulting from mini cubicle offices. RGB laser diodes (LDs) were used to mitigate the low modulation bandwidth of conventional transmitters (light emitting diodes, LEDs) in the VLC system. In addition, an angle diversity receiver (ADR) was introduced to mitigate intersymbol- interference (ISI). Furthermore, a delay adaptation technique was used to further reduce the effect of ISI and multipath dispersion. The combination of delay adaptation and ADR (DAT ADR system) added a degree of freedom to the link design, which resulted in a VLC system that has the ability to provide high data rates (i.e. 5 Gbps) in the considered harsh indoor environment. Our proposed system used a simple on-off keying (OOK) modulation format and it was able to provide data rates of 5 Gbps and a bit-error-rate (BER) of 10-3 in the worst case scenario in the considered realistic indoor environment

Multiple-input multiple-output visible light communication receivers for high data-rate mobile applications

Visible light communication (VLC) is an emerging form of optical wireless communication that transmits data by modulating light in the visible spectrum. To meet the growing demand for wireless communication capacity from mobile devices, we investigate multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) VLC to achieve multiplexing capacity gains and to allow multiple users to simultaneously transmit without disrupting each other. Previous approaches to receive VLC signals have either been unable to simultaneously receive multiple independent signals from multiple transmitters, unable to adapt to moving transmitters and receivers, or unable to sample the received signals fast enough for high-speed VLC. In this dissertation, we develop and evaluate two novel approaches to receive high-speed MIMO VLC signals from mobile transmitters that can be practically scaled to support additional transmitters. The first approach, Token-Based Pixel Selection (TBPS) exploits the redundancy and sparsity of high-resolution transmitter images in imaging VLC receivers to greatly increase the rate at which complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) active pixel sensor (APS) image sensors can sample VLC signals though improved signal routing to enable such high-resolution image sensors to capture high-speed VLC signals. We further model the CMOS APS pixel as a linear shift-invariant system, investigate how it scales to support additional transmitters and higher resolutions, and investigate how noise can affect its performance. The second approach, a spatial light modulator (SLM)-based VLC receiver, uses an SLM to dynamically control the resulting wireless channel matrix to enable relatively few photodetectors to reliably receive from multiple transmitters despite their movements. As part of our analysis, we develop a MIMO VLC channel capacity model that accounts for the non-negativity and peak-power constraints of VLC systems to evaluate the performance of the SLM VLC receiver and to facilitate the optimization of the channel matrix through the SLM

Analysis of random orientation and user mobility in LiFi networks

Mobile data traffic is anticipated to surpass 49 exabyte per month by 2021. Smartphones, as the main factor of generating this huge data traffic (86%), are expected to require average speed connection of 20 Mbps by 2021. Light-fidelity (LiFi) is a novel bidirectional, high-speed and fully networked optical wireless communication and it is a promising solution to undertake this huge data traffic. However, to support seamless connectivity in LiFi networks, real-time knowledge of channel state information (CSI) from each user is required at the LiFi access point (AP). The CSI availability enables us to achieve optimal resource allocation and throughput maximization but it requires feedback transmitted through the uplink channel. Furthermore, the important aspects of the indoor LiFi channel such as the random orientation of user device, user mobility and link blockage need to be carefully analysed and effective solutions should be developed. In contrast to radio frequency (RF) channels, the LiFi channel is relatively less random. This feature of LiFi channel enables a potential reduction in the amount of feedback required to achieve high throughputs in a dynamic LiFi network. Based on this feature, two techniques for reducing the amount of feedback in LiFi cellular networks are proposed: 1) limited-content feedback scheme based on reducing the content of feedback information and 2) limited-frequency feedback scheme based on the update interval. It is shown that these limited-feedback schemes can provide almost the same downlink performance as full feedback scheme. Furthermore, an optimum update interval which provides maximum bidirectional user equipment (UE) throughput, has been derived. Device orientation and its statistics is an important determinant factor that can affect the users throughput remarkably in LiFi networks. However, device orientation has been ignored in many previous performance studies of LiFi networks due to the lack of a proper statistical model. In this thesis, a novel model for the orientation of user device are proposed based on experimental measurements. The statistics of the device orientation for both sitting and walking activities are presented. Moreover, the statistics of the line-of-sight (LOS) channel gain are calculated. The influence of random device orientation on the received signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) and bit-error ratio (BER) performance of LiFi systems has been also evaluated. To support the seamless connectivity of future LiFi-enabled devices in the presence of random device orientation, mobility and blockage, efficient handover between APs are required. In this thesis, an orientation-based random waypoint (ORWP) mobility model is proposed to analyze the performance of mobile users considering the effect of random device orientation. Based on this model, an analysis of handover due to random orientation and user mobility is presented. Finally, in order to improve seamless connectivity, a multi-directional receiver (MDR) configuration is proposed. The MDR configuration shows a robust performance in the presence of user mobility, random device orientation and blockage

Spectrum and energy efficient digital modulation techniques for practical visible light communication systems

The growth in mobile data traffic is rapidly increasing in an unsustainable direction given the radio frequency (RF) spectrum limits. Visible light communication (VLC) offers a lucrative solution based on an alternative license-free frequency band that is safe to use and inexpensive to utilize. Improving the spectral and energy efficiency of intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) systems is still an on-going challenge in VLC. The energy efficiency of inherently unipolar modulation techniques such as pulse-amplitude modulation discrete multitone modulation (PAM-DMT) and asymmetrically clipped optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ACO-OFDM) degrades at high spectral efficiency. Two novel superposition modulation techniques are proposed in this thesis based on PAM-DMT and ACO-OFDM. In addition, a practical solution based on the computationally efficient augmented spectral efficiency discrete multi-tone (ASE-DMT) is proposed. The system performance of the proposed superposition modulation techniques offers significant electrical and optical power savings with up to 8 dB in the electrical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) when compared with DC-biased optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DCO-OFDM). The theoretical bit error ratio (BER) performance bounds for all of the proposed modulation techniques are in agreement with the Monte-Carlo simulation results. The proposed superposition modulation techniques are promising candidates for spectrum and energy efficient IM/DD systems. Two experimental studies are presented for a VLC system based on DCO-OFDM with adaptive bit and energy loading. Micrometer-sized Gallium Nitride light emitting diode (m-LED) and light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation diode (LD) are used in these studies due to their high modulation bandwidth. Record data rates are achieved with a BER below the forward error correction (FEC) threshold at 7.91 Gb/s using the violet m-LED and at 15 Gb/s using the blue LD. These results highlight the potential of VLC systems in practical high speed communication solutions. An additional experimental study is demonstrated for the proposed superposition modulation techniques based on ASE-DMT. The experimentally achieved results confirm the theoretical and simulation based performance predictions of ASE-DMT. A significant gain of up to 17.33 dB in SNR is demonstrated at a low direct current (DC) bias. Finally, the perception that VLC systems cannot work under the presence of sunlight is addressed in this thesis. A complete framework is presented to evaluate the performance of VLC systems in the presence of solar irradiance at any given location and time. The effect of sunlight is investigated in terms of the degradations in SNR, data rate and BER. A reliable high speed communication system is achieved under the sunlight effect. An optical bandpass blue filter is shown to compensate for half of the reduced data rate in the presence of sunlight. This thesis demonstrates data rates above 1 Gb/s for a practical VLC link under strong solar illuminance measured at 50350 lux in clear weather conditions

Optical Communication

Optical communication is very much useful in telecommunication systems, data processing and networking. It consists of a transmitter that encodes a message into an optical signal, a channel that carries the signal to its desired destination, and a receiver that reproduces the message from the received optical signal. It presents up to date results on communication systems, along with the explanations of their relevance, from leading researchers in this field. The chapters cover general concepts of optical communication, components, systems, networks, signal processing and MIMO systems. In recent years, optical components and other enhanced signal processing functions are also considered in depth for optical communications systems. The researcher has also concentrated on optical devices, networking, signal processing, and MIMO systems and other enhanced functions for optical communication. This book is targeted at research, development and design engineers from the teams in manufacturing industry, academia and telecommunication industries

Parallel Data Transmission in Indoor Visible Light Communication Systems

This paper presents an indoor visible light communication (VLC) system in conjunction with an imaging receiver with parallel data transmission (spatial multiplexing) to reduce the effects of the inter-symbol interference (ISI). To distinguish between light units (transmitters) and to match the light units used to convey the data with the pixels of the imaging receiver, we propose the use of subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) tones. Each light unit transmission is multiplexed with a unique tone. At the receiver, a SCM tone decision system is utilized to measure the power level of each SCM tone and consequently associate each pixel with a light unit. In addition, the level of co-channel interference (CCI) between light units is estimated using the SCM tones. Our proposed system is examined in two indoor environments taking into account reflective components (first and second order reflections). The results show that this system has the potential to achieve an aggregate data rate of 8 Gb/s with a bit error rate of 10 –6 for each light unit, using simple on-off-keying (OOK)