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

Secure thermal infrared communications using engineered blackbody radiation

The thermal (emitted) infrared frequency bands, from 20–40 THz and 60–100 THz, are best known for applications in thermography. This underused and unregulated part of the spectral range offers opportunities for the development of secure communications. The ‘THz Torch' concept was recently presented by the authors. This technology fundamentally exploits engineered blackbody radiation, by partitioning thermally-generated spectral noise power into pre-defined frequency channels; the energy in each channel is then independently pulsed modulated and multiplexing schemes are introduced to create a robust form of short-range secure communications in the far/mid infrared. To date, octave bandwidth (25–50 THz) single-channel links have been demonstrated with 380 bps speeds. Multi-channel ‘THz Torch' frequency division multiplexing (FDM) and frequency-hopping spread-spectrum (FHSS) schemes have been proposed, but only a slow 40 bps FDM scheme has been demonstrated experimentally. Here, we report a much faster 1,280 bps FDM implementation. In addition, an experimental proof-of-concept FHSS scheme is demonstrated for the first time, having a 320 bps data rate. With both 4-channel multiplexing schemes, measured bit error rates (BERs) of < 10(−6) are achieved over a distance of 2.5 cm. Our approach represents a new paradigm in the way niche secure communications can be established over short links

Spatial Interference Detection for Mobile Visible Light Communication

Taking advantage of the rolling shutter effect of CMOS cameras in smartphones is a common practice to increase the transfered data rate with visible light communication (VLC) without employing external equipment such as photodiodes. VLC can then be used as replacement of other marker based techniques for object identification for Augmented Reality and Ubiquitous computing applications. However, the rolling shutter effect only allows to transmit data over a single dimension, which considerably limits the available bandwidth. In this article we propose a new method exploiting spacial interference detection to enable parallel transmission and design a protocol that enables easy identification of interferences between two signals. By introducing a second dimension, we are not only able to significantly increase the available bandwidth, but also identify and isolate light sources in close proximity

Trace-Orthogonal PPM-Space Time Block Coding Under Rate Constraints for Visible Light Communication

Visible light communications (VLC) represents a new frontier of communications allowing high data-rate Internet access, specially in indoor environments, where the use of light emitting diodes (LEDs) is growing as a viable alternative to traditional illumination. As a result, LED output intensity can be varied faster than human eye can perceive, thus guaranteeing simultaneous wireless communications and illumination. One of the key challenges is the limited modulation bandwidth of sources that is typically around several MHz. The use of multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) techniques in optical wireless system helps to increase the capacity of the system and thus improve the system performance. In this paper, we investigate the use of an optical MIMO technique jointly with pulse position modulation (PPM) in order to improve the data rates without reducing the reliability of the link. PPM is known to be signal-to-noise ratio efficient modulation format, while it is bandwidth inefficient so the use of MIMO can compensate that drawback with reasonable complexity. Furthermore, an offline tool for VLC system planning, including error probability and transmission rate, has been proposed in order to solve the tradeoff between transmission rate and error rate. Finally, several numerical results and performance comparisons are reported

Phase messaging method for time-of-flight cameras

Ubiquitous light emitting devices and low-cost commercial digital cameras facilitate optical wireless communication system such as visual MIMO where handheld cameras communicate with electronic displays. While intensity-based optical communications are more prevalent in camera-display messaging, we present a novel method that uses modulated light phase for messaging and time-of-flight (ToF) cameras for receivers. With intensity-based methods, light signals can be degraded by reflections and ambient illumination. By comparison, communication using ToF cameras is more robust against challenging lighting conditions. Additionally, the concept of phase messaging can be combined with intensity messaging for a significant data rate advantage. In this work, we design and construct a phase messaging array (PMA), which is the first of its kind, to communicate to a ToF depth camera by manipulating the phase of the depth camera's infrared light signal. The array enables message variation spatially using a plane of infrared light emitting diodes and temporally by varying the induced phase shift. In this manner, the phase messaging array acts as the transmitter by electronically controlling the light signal phase. The ToF camera acts as the receiver by observing and recording a time-varying depth. We show a complete implementation of a 3×3 prototype array with custom hardware and demonstrating average bit accuracy as high as 97.8%. The prototype data rate with this approach is 1 Kbps that can be extended to approximately 10 Mbps.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant CNS-106546#

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

Interference Suppression in Massive MIMO VLC Systems

The focus of this dissertation is on the development and evaluation of methods and principles to mitigate interference in multiuser visible light communication (VLC) systems using several transmitters. All components of such a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system are considered and transformed into a communication system model, while also paying particular attention to the hardware requirements of different modulation schemes. By analyzing all steps in the communication process, the inter-channel interference between users is identified as the most critical aspect. Several methods of suppressing this kind of interference, i.e. to split the MIMO channel into parallel single channels, are discussed, and a novel active LCD-based interference suppression principle at the receiver side is introduced as main aspect of this work. This technique enables a dynamic adaption of the physical channel: compared to solely software-based or static approaches, the LCD interference suppression filter achieves adaptive channel separation without altering the characteristics of the transmitter lights. This is especially advantageous in dual-use scenarios with illumination requirements. Additionally, external interferers, like natural light or transmitter light sources of neighboring cells in a multicell setting, can also be suppressed without requiring any control over them. Each user&#39;s LCD filter is placed in front of the corresponding photodetector and configured in such a way that only light from desired transmitters can reach the detector by setting only the appropriate pixels to transparent, while light from unwanted transmitters remains blocked. The effectiveness of this method is tested and benchmarked against zero-forcing (ZF) precoding in different scenarios and applications by numerical simulations and also verified experimentally in a large MIMO VLC testbed created specifically for this purpose