Distributions of Upper PAPR and Lower PAPR of OFDM Signals in Visible Light Communications

Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) in visible light communications (VLC) inherits the disadvantage of high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) from OFDM in radio frequency (RF) communications. The upper peak power and lower peak power of real-valued VLC-OFDM signals are both limited by the dynamic constraints of light emitting diodes (LEDs). The efficiency and transmitted electrical power are directly related with the upper PAPR (UPAPR) and lower PAPR (LPAPR) of VLC-OFDM. In this paper, we will derive the complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF) of UPAPR and LPAPR, and investigate the joint distribution of UPAPR and LPAPR.Comment: acceptted by IEEE ICASSP 2014. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1304.019

Coded Index Modulation for Non-DC-Biased OFDM in Multiple LED Visible Light Communication

Use of multiple light emitting diodes (LED) is an attractive way to increase spectral efficiency in visible light communications (VLC). A non-DC-biased OFDM (NDC OFDM) scheme that uses two LEDs has been proposed in the literature recently. NDC OFDM has been shown to perform better than other OFDM schemes for VLC like DC-biased OFDM (DCO OFDM) and asymmetrically clipped OFDM (ACO OFDM) in multiple LEDs settings. In this paper, we propose an efficient multiple LED OFDM scheme for VLC which uses {\em coded index modulation}. The proposed scheme uses two transmitter blocks, each having a pair of LEDs. Within each block, NDC OFDM signaling is done. The selection of which block is activated in a signaling interval is decided by information bits (i.e., index bits). In order to improve the reliability of the index bits at the receiver (which is critical because of high channel correlation in multiple LEDs settings), we propose to use coding on the index bits alone. We call the proposed scheme as CI-NDC OFDM (coded index NDC OFDM) scheme. Simulation results show that, for the same spectral efficiency, CI-NDC OFDM that uses LDPC coding on the index bits performs better than NDC OFDM

EVM and Achievable Data Rate Analysis of Clipped OFDM Signals in Visible Light Communication

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has been considered for visible light communication (VLC) thanks to its ability to boost data rates as well as its robustness against frequency-selective fading channels. A major disadvantage of OFDM is the large dynamic range of its time-domain waveforms, making OFDM vulnerable to nonlinearity of light emitting diodes (LEDs). DC biased optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM) and asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM) are two popular OFDM techniques developed for the VLC. In this paper, we will analyze the performance of the DCO-OFDM and ACO-OFDM signals in terms of error vector magnitude (EVM), signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR), and achievable data rates under both average optical power and dynamic optical power constraints. EVM is a commonly used metric to characterize distortions. We will describe an approach to numerically calculate the EVM for DCO-OFDM and ACO-OFDM. We will derive the optimum biasing ratio in the sense of minimizing EVM for DCO-OFDM. Additionally, we will formulate the EVM minimization problem as a convex linear optimization problem and obtain an EVM lower bound against which to compare the DCO-OFDM and ACO-OFDM techniques. We will prove that the ACO-OFDM can achieve the lower bound. Average optical power and dynamic optical power are two main constraints in VLC. We will derive the achievable data rates under these two constraints for both additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel and frequency-selective channel. We will compare the performance of DCO-OFDM and ACO-OFDM under different power constraint scenarios

Performance Evaluation of a VLC Transmitter Based on the Split of the Power

IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, San Antonio, (Estados Unidos de Norteamérica), marzo de 2018Visible Light Communication (VLC) has gained relevance during last years. It consists in using High-Brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs) both for lighting and for transmitting information changing the light intensity rapidly. However, there are some bottlenecks that are slowing down the deployment of this technology. One of the most important problems is that the HB-LED drivers proposed for addressing high data rates in VLC achieve poor power efficiency. Since these HB-LED drivers must be able to reproduce fast current waveforms, the use of Linear Power Amplifiers (LPAs) has been adopted, which clearly damage the power efficiency of HB-LED lighting. In order to alleviate this problem, a HB-LED driver made up of two DC-DC power converters is presented in this work. One of them is responsible for performing the communication functionality by operating at high switching frequency (10 MHz), whereas the second one fulfills the illumination functionality by ensuring a certain biasing point. The split of the power allows to minimize the power delivered by the fast-response DC-DC power converter. Thus, the efficiency can be maximized for scenarios with changing conditions (i.e., mobile transmitter and/or receiver, presence of mobile obstacles, etc.). In this sense, how the lighting level and the communication signal power affect both the power efficiency and the communication efficiency is deeply analyzed. The implemented prototype achieves an overall efficiency around 90%. In addition, the proposed VLC transmitter is able to reproduce a wide range of digital modulation schemes, including Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM

VLCLighting - A Collaborative Research Project on Visible Light Communication

This paper describes a collaborative research project on Visible Light Communications for lighting infrastructures. It is being developed by the Integrated Circuits and Mobile Network groups in Instituto de Telecomunicações, Aveiro site, and expects to deliver a VLC demonstrator transmitting video and data in real-time by the end of 2016. Another main goal is to develop this system to be modular in order to enable collaboration with other groups with interest in this field, offering the academic community a real-time test bed to evaluate the performance of different modules, algorithms and optical front-ends, which is currently not available