We propose an enhanced spatial modulation (SM)-based scheme for indoor visible light communication systems. This scheme enhances the achievable throughput of conventional SM schemes by transmitting higher order complex modulation symbol, which is decomposed into three different parts. These parts carry the amplitude, phase, and quadrant components of the complex symbol, which are then represented by unipolar pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) symbols. Superposition coding is exploited to allocate a fraction of the total power to each part before they are all multiplexed and transmitted simultaneously, exploiting the entire available bandwidth. At the receiver, a two-step decoding process is proposed to decode the active light emitting diode index before the complex symbol is retrieved. It is shown that at higher spectral efficiency values, the proposed modulation scheme outperforms conventional SM schemes with PAM symbols in terms of average symbol error rate (ASER), and hence, enhancing the system throughput. Furthermore, since the performance of the proposed modulation scheme is sensitive to the power allocation factors, we formulated an ASER optimization problem and propose a sub-optimal solution using successive convex programming (SCP). Notably, the proposed algorithm converges after only few iterations, whilst the performance with the optimized power allocation coefficients outperforms both random and fixed power allocation.
VLC is attracting a lot of attention as an emerging potential technology for deployment in next generation indoor wireless networks. Use of efficient link switching scheme among VLC access points is critical in indoor environment to provide seamless connectivity to mobile users. This paper presents a novel position prediction link switching scheme for indoor visible light communication systems. The method exploits the fact that indoor scenario (light fixtures/furniture) mostly remains unchanged, therefore, this information can be stored at the coordinator end. Thus, the user is not required to…
Visible light communication (VLC) is an optical wireless communication technology that is considered a promising solution for high-speed indoor connectivity. Unlike the case in conventional radio-frequency wireless systems, the VLC channel is not isotropic, meaning that the device orientation affects the channel gain significantly. In addition, due to the use of optical frequency bands, the presence of different obstacles (e.g., walls, human bodies, furniture) may easily block the VLC links. One solution to overcome these issues is the integration of the intelligent reflective surface (IRS), w…
Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has increased complexity and reduced spectral efficiency in visible light communications (VLC) NOMA compared to radiofrequency NOMA due to non-negative real value constraints on transmit symbols. To address this issue, we propose a generalized non-OFDM based scheme for two scenarios of indoor VLC; i) Multiple access channel (MAC), ii) Broadcast channel (BC). We evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme for MAC using successive interference cancellation (SIC) based decoding, joint maximum likelih…
The visible light communication (VLC) technology has attracted much attention in the research of the sixth generation (6G) communication systems. In this paper, a novel three dimensional (3D) space-time-frequency non-stationary geometry-based stochastic model (GBSM) is proposed for indoor VLC channels. The proposed VLC GBSM can capture unique indoor VLC channel characteristics such as the space-time-frequency non-stationarity caused by large light-emitting diode (LED) arrays in indoor scenarios, long travelling paths, and large bandwidths of visible light waves, respectively. In addition, the …
In this paper, an indoor robot localization system based on Robot Operating System (ROS) and visible light communication (VLC) is presented. On the basis of our previous work, we innovatively designed a VLC localization and navigation package based on Robot Operating System (ROS), which contains the LED-ID detection and recognition method, the video target tracking algorithm and the double-lamp positioning algorithm. This package exploited the principle of double-lamp positioning and the loose coupling characteristics of the ROS system, which is implemented by loosely coupled ROS nodes. Conseq…
A system that employs wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) in conjunction with subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) tones is proposed to realize high data rate multi-user indoor visible light communication (VLC). The SCM tones, which are unmodulated signals, are used to identify each light unit, to find the optimum light unit for each user and to calculate the level of the co-channel interference (CCI). WDM is utilized to attain a high data rate for each user. In this paper, multicolour (four colours) laser diodes (LDs) are utilized as sources of lighting and data communication. One of the WDM colo…
Visible light communication (VLC) has the potential to supplement the growing demand for wireless connectivity. In order to realise the full potential of VLC, channel models are required Discrete channel models based on semi-hidden Markov models (Fritchman model) for indoor VLC using low data rate LEDs are presented. Each channel considered includes background noise and differing types of interference from fluorescent lights and pulse-width modulated (PWM) LEDs, which could be part of an indoor smart lighting system. Models were developed based on experimental error sequences from a VLC system…
Visible light communication (VLC) utilizes light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to transmit wireless data. A VLC network can also be used to localize mobile users in indoor environments, where the global positioning system (GPS) signals are weak. However, the line-of-sight (LOS) links of mobile VLC devices can be blocked easily, which decreases the accuracy of localization. In this paper, we study tracking a VLC user when the availability of VLC access point (AP) link changes over the user's route. We propose a localization method for a single available AP and use known estimation methods when a large…
Indoor localization systems based on Visible Light Communication (VLC) have shown promising advantages compared with systems based on other wireless technologies. In these systems, many VLC light-emitting diode (LED) anchors are employed in an indoor space in which location identification messages are sent to user devices in small packets. In normal beacon network models, micro-controller (MCU) or low-end system-on-chip (SoC) are often the coordinators which configure messages for one or many VLC-LED bulbs. In this paper, we discuss about processing overload and implementation cost of the two …
In this letter, we propose a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) based scheme for multi-cell indoor visible light communications (VLC), where cell-edge user is jointly served by multiple cells. Unlike the typical designs in the existing literature, the proposed scheme doesn't involve complex domain and direct current bias addition, which makes the design simple and feasible for real time implementation in indoor VLC. The symbol error rate (SER) of the proposed NOMA scheme is analysed using analytical and simulation results, and is compared with orthogonal multiple access (OMA). It is observe…
One of the main aims of indoor visible light communication (VLC) systems is to deliver a high data rate service in single user and in multiuser scenarios. A key obstacle is the ability of the indoor VLC channel to support high data rates in the scenarios of interest. Here, we assess the potential of a multi-branch transmitter (MBT) and its use to achieve higher data rates in single user and multiuser indoor VLC systems. For the single user VLC system, the performance of the MBT is examined with a wide field of view (W-FOV) receiver and an angle diversity receiver (ADR) while for the multiuser …
In this paper, we investigate the dynamic power allocation for a visible light communication (VLC) cellular system consisting of two coordinating attocells, each equipped with one access-point (AP). The coordinated multipoint (CoMP) between the two cells is introduced to assist users experiencing high inter-cell-interference (ICI). Specifically, the coordinated zero-forcing (ZF) precoding is used to cancel the ICI at the users located near the centers of the cells, whereas the joint transmission (JT) is employed to eliminate the ICI at the users located at the edge of both cells and to improve…
In this communication revolution era, visible light communication (VLC) is the optimum efficacious answer to the increased request for high-speed data transmission with reduced cost, besides the illumination. This technology is considered the best promising candidate for indoor positioning due to its ability to attain higher positioning accuracy than other technologies, alongside its distinct advantages. However, the existing techniques that had been applied in an indoor positioning system (IPS) based on VLC focused on the aspect of accuracy but neglected the aspects of cost and complexity. Th…
Visible light positioning (VLP) is an accurate indoor positioning technology that uses luminaires as transmitters. In particular, circular luminaires are a common source type for VLP, that are typically treated only as point sources for positioning, while ignoring their geometry characteristics. In this paper, the arc feature of the circular luminaire and the coordinate information obtained via visible light communication (VLC) are jointly used for VLC-enabled indoor positioning, and a novel perspective arcs approach is proposed. The proposed approach does not rely on any inertial measurement …
In this paper, we propose a novel visible light communication (VLC) assisted Perspective-fourLine algorithm (V-P4L) for practical indoor localization. The basic idea of V-P4L is to joint VLC and computer vision to achieve high accuracy regardless of LED height differences. In particular, we first exploit the space-domain information to estimate the orientation and coordinate of a single rectangular LED luminaire in the camera coordinate system based on the plane and solid geometry. Then, based on the time-domain information transmitted by VLC and the estimated luminaire information, V-P4L can …
We demonstrate, for the first time, m-CAP modulation using off-the-shelf LEDs in a VLC in real time experimental setup using field programmable gate arrays based in universal software radio peripherals (USRPs). We demonstrate transmission speeds up to ~30 Mb/s can be achieved, which supports high definition television streaming.
Visible Light Communication~(VLC) systems provide not only illumination and data communication, but also indoor monitoring services if the effect that different events create on the received optical signal is properly tracked. For this purpose, the Channel State Information that a VLC receiver computes to equalize the subcarriers of the OFDM signal can be also reused to train an Unsupervised Learning classifier. This way, different clusters can be created on the collected CSI data, which could be then mapped into relevant events to-be-monitored in the indoor environments, such as the presence …
Recent development of the fifth-generation (5G) of cellular networks has led to their deployment worldwide. As part of the implementation, one of the challenges that must be addressed is the skip-zone problem, which occurs when objects obstruct the transmission of signals. A signal obstruction can significantly reduce the signal-to-noise ratio in radio frequency (RF) and indoor visible light communications (VLC) systems, whereas the obstruction can completely disrupt data transmission in free-space optical (FSO) systems. Therefore, the skip-zone dilemma must be resolved to ensure the efficient…
Visible light communication (VLC) is an emerging technique that uses light-emitting diodes (LED) to combine communication and illumination. It is considered as a promising scheme for indoor wireless communication that can be deployed at reduced costs while offering high data rate performance. In this paper, we focus on the design of the downlink of a multi-user VLC system. Inherent to multi-user systems is the interference caused by the broadcast nature of the medium. Linear precoding based schemes are among the most popular solutions that have recently been proposed to mitigate inter-user int…
The achievable data rate in indoor wireless systems that employ visible light communication (VLC) can be limited by multipath propagation. Here, we use computer generated holograms (CGHs) in VLC system design to improve the achievable system data rate. The CGHs are utilized to produce a fixed broad beam from the light source, selecting the light source that offers the best performance. The CGHs direct this beam to a specific zone on the room's communication floor where the receiver is located. This reduces the effect of diffuse reflections. Consequently, decreasing the intersymbol interference…
Visible light communication (VLC) builds upon the dual use of existing lighting infrastructure for wireless data transmission. VLC has recently gained interest as cost-effective, secure, and energy-efficient wireless access technology particularly for indoor user-dense environments. While initial studies in this area are mainly limited to single-user point-to-point links, more recent efforts have focused on multi-user VLC systems in an effort to transform VLC into a scalable and fully networked wireless technology. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of multi-user VLC systems di…
Visible light communication (VLC) enables access to huge unlicensed bandwidth, a higher security level, and no radio frequency interference. With these advantages, VLC emerges as a complementary solution to radio frequency communications. VLC systems have primarily been designed for indoor scenarios with typical transmission distances between 2 and 5 m. Different designs would be required for larger distances. This paper proposes for the first time the use of a liquid crystal (LC)-based re-configurable intelligent surface (RIS) on improving the VLC signal detection and transmission range. An L…
This paper presents a comprehensive performance analysis of an integrated indoor power line communication (PLC)/visible light communication (VLC) system with the presence of a decode-and-forward (DF) relay. The existing indoor power line networks are used as the backbone for VLCs. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated in terms of the average capacity and the outage probability. A new unified mathematical method is developed for the PLC/VLC system and analytical expressions for the aforementioned performance metrics are derived. Monte Carlo simulations are provided throughout the …
Side-effect modulation (SEM) has the potential to be a significant source of interference in future visible light communication (VLC) systems. SEM is a variation in the intensity of the light emitted by a luminaire and is usually a side-effect caused by the power supply used to drive the luminaires. For LED luminaires powered by a switched mode power supply, the SEM can be at much higher frequencies than that emitted by conventional incandescent or fluorescent lighting. It has been shown that the SEM caused by commercially available LED luminaires is often periodic and of low power. In this pa…
Visible light communication (VLC) is an emerging technology that enables broadband data rates using the visible spectrum. In this paper, considering slow beam steering where VLC beam directions are assumed to be fixed during a transmission frame, we find the steering angles that simultaneously serve multiple users within the frame duration and maximize the data rates. This is achieved by solving a non-convex optimization problem using a grid-based search and majorization-minimization (MM) procedure. Subsequently, we consider multiple steerable beams with a larger number of users in the network…
Due to the dramatic increase in high data rate services and in order to meet the demands of the fifth-generation (5G) networks, researchers from both academia and industry are exploring advanced transmission techniques, new network architectures and new frequency spectrum such as the visible light spectra. Visible light communication (VLC) particularly is an emerging technology that has been introduced as a promising solution for 5G and beyond. Although VLC systems are more immune against interference and less susceptible to security vulnerabilities since light does not penetrate through walls…
Providing high data rates is one of the drivers in visible light communication (VLC) systems. This paper introduces a VLC system that employs transmitters diversity with beam steering to provide high data rates. In this work, red, yellow, green, and blue (RYGB) laser diodes (LD) are used as transmitters to obtain a high modulation bandwidth. Two types of RYGB LDs units are used in this paper: transmitters diversity (TD) RYGB LDs light unit (for illumination and communication) and RYGB LDs light unit (for illumination). In addition, a seven branch angle diversity receiver (ADR) is used where we…
Visible light communication (VLC) based localization is a potential candidate for wide range indoor localization applications. In this paper, we propose a VLC architecture based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with multiple functionalities integrated in the same system, i.e., the 3- D receiver location, the control of the room illumination intensity, as well as the data transmission capability. Herein we propose an original methodology for LED power discrimination applying spatial optical OFDM (SO-OFDM) structure for position estimation. The hybrid locator initially makes …
In this paper, an improved channel model of visible light communication (VLC) for ranging in presented. For indoor channel model of VLC, distance is estimated based on received signal strength. In this model, received shot noise as a distance-dependent parameter is considered in range estimation accuracy. Moreover, based on this model, the Cramer-Rao lower bound is computed as the theoretical limits on the performance and accuracy of any unbiased estimator. In this way, the effects of horizontal and vertical distances are investigated. In addition, the transmitted power effect on RSN and accor…
Providing high data rates is one of the big concerns in visible light communication (VLC) systems. This paper introduces a data centre design that use a VLC system for downlink communication. In this work, RYGB laser diodes (LD) are used as transmitters to obtain a high modulation bandwidth. Three types of receivers, wide field of view receiver (WFOVR), 3 branches angle diversity receiver (ADR) and 50 pixels imaging receiver (ImR) are used to examine delay spread and SNR. The proposed system achieved data rates up to 14.2 Gbps using simple on-off-keying (OOK) modulation.
This paper proposes a novel power-efficient light-emitting diode (LED) placement algorithm for indoor visible light communication (VLC). In the considered model, the LEDs can be designedly placed for high power efficiency while satisfying the indoor communication and illumination requirements. This design problem is formulated as a power minimization problem under both communication and illumination level constraints. Due to the interactions among LEDs and the illumination uniformity constraint, the formulated problem is complex and non-convex. To solve the problem, we first transform the comp…
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications（北京邮电大学）；Princeton University（普林斯顿大学）；The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen（香港中文大学（深圳））；Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data（深圳大数据研究院）
Limited radio frequency (RF) resources restrict the number of users that can participate in federated learning (FL) thus affecting FL convergence speed and performance. In this paper, we first introduce visible light communication (VLC) as a supplement to RF in FL and build a hybrid VLC/RF communication system, in which each indoor user can use both VLC and RF to transmit its FL model parameters. Then, the problem of user selection and bandwidth allocation is studied for FL implemented over a hybrid VLC/RF system aiming to optimize the FL performance. The problem is first separated into two su…
Vehicular visible light communications (V-VLC) is a promising intelligent transportation systems (ITS) technology for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications with the utilization of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The main degrading factor for the performance of V-VLC systems is noise. Unlike traditional radio frequency (RF) based systems, V-VLC systems include many noise sources: solar radiation, background lighting from vehicles, streets, parking garages, and tunnel lights. Traditional V-VLC system noise modeling is based on the additive white Gaussian noise…
This paper presents an indoor visible light communication (VLC) system in conjunction with an imaging receiver with parallel data transmission (spatial multiplexing) to decrease the effects of 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 con…
Multi-colour light-emitting diode (LED) based visible light communication (VLC) benefits from wavelength diversity while providing indoor illumination. Colour shift keying (CSK) is a well-researched IEEE standardised multi-colour VLC modulation technique. This paper presents an investigation into the performance of tri-chromatic LED (TLED) CSK standardised in IEEE 802.15.7 and a quad-chromatic LED (QLED) CSK, over a range of diffuse optical wireless channels, and proposes the use of frequency domain equalisation (FDE) at the receiver to combat multipath dispersion. The investigation results sh…
Visible light communication (VLC) has been recognized as a promising technology for handling the continuously increasing quality of service and connectivity requirements in modern wireless communications, particularly in indoor scenarios. In this context, the present work considers the integration of two distinct modulation schemes, namely spatial modulation (SM) with space time block codes (STBCs), aiming at improving the overall VLC system reliability. Based on this and in order to further enhance the achievable transmission data rate, we integrate quasi-orthogonal STBC (QOSTBC) with SM, sin…
Reliable data transmissions and offering better mobility to the end user can be achieved by integrating different communication systems. In this paper, we investigate the performance of a cascaded indoor power line communication (PLC)/visible light communication (VLC) system with the presence of an amplify-and-forward (AF) relay. Using the pre-installed infrastructure of electricity wiring networks gives the advantage to use PLC as a backbone for VLCs. The performance of the proposed hybrid system is discussed in terms of the average capacity. A mathematical method is developed for this networ…
Wireless communications refer to data transmissions in unguided propagation media through the use of wireless carriers such as radio frequency (RF) and visible light (VL) waves. The rising demand for high data rates, especially, in indoor scenarios, overloads conventional RF technologies. Therefore, technologies such as millimeter waves (mmWave) and cognitive radios have been adopted as possible solutions to overcome the spectrum scarcity and capacity limitations of the conventional RF systems. In parallel, visible light communication (VLC) has been proposed as an alternative solution, where a…
Visible light communications (VLC) is gaining interest as one of the enablers of short-distance, high-data-rate applications, in future beyond 5G networks. Moreover, non-orthogonal multiple-access (NOMA)-enabled schemes have recently emerged as a promising multiple-access scheme for these networks that would allow realization of the target spectral efficiency and user fairness requirements. The integration of NOMA in the widely adopted orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)-based VLC networks would require an optimal resource allocation for the pair or the cluster of users sharing t…
In this paper, we propose light-emitting diode (LED) selection that can be applied not only to the conventional Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) case, but also to a larger MIMO configuration of generalized LED index modulation (GLIM) system with optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) in visible light communication (VLC). Moreover, we derive a simplified implementation of the maximum a posteriori (MAP) detector when the number of LEDs is an even number larger than four. Simulation results show that the performance of MAP and LED selection is better than other detection a…
The main challenge in visible light communications (VLC) is the low modulation bandwidth of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). This forms a barrier towards achieving high data rates. Moreover, the implementation of high order modulation schemes is restricted by the requirements of intensity modulation (IM) and direct detection (DD), which demand the use of real unipolar signals. In this paper, we propose a novel amplitude, phase and quadrant (APQ) modulation scheme that fits into the IM/DD restrictions in VLC systems. The proposed scheme decomposes the complex and bipolar symbols of high order modu…
The massive deployment of light-emitting diode (LED) lightning infrastructure has opened the opportunity to reuse it as visible light communication (VLC) to leverage the current RF spectrum crisis in indoor scenarios. One of the main problems in VLC is the limited dynamic range of LEDs and their nonlinear response, which may lead to a severe degradation in the communication, and more specifically in the bit error rate (BER). This is aggravated by the extensive usage of multicarrier multiplexing, based on optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (O-OFDM), characterized by a high peak-…
Photovoltaic (PV) modules have been employed in visible light communication (VLC) for simultaneous energy harvesting and data reception. A PV-based receiver features easy optical alignment and self-powered operation. It is commonly assumed that PV modules in VLC have a linear optical-electrical response, which is generally true under high illumination levels. This paper will illustrate the exacerbated PV's nonlinear distortion when under typical indoor illumination. The nonlinearity of a PV module for different numbers of PV cells is also characterized. We investigated the transmission perform…
