IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 16, NO.

9, MAY 1, 2016 2803

Toward Environmental-Adaptive Visible Light

Communications Receivers for Automotive
Applications: A Review
Alin-Mihai Căilean and Mihai Dimian

Abstract— Since more and more vehicles are using the trans-
portation infrastructure, the safety and the efficiency of roads
are of absolute importance. A solution to enhance the security
of road transportation is by enabling wireless communica-
tions between vehicles and also with the traffic infrastructures
(e.g., traffic lights, street lighting, or traffic signs). In this
area, visible light communications (VLC) is considered of great
perspective. A fundamental problematic in vehicular VLC is
the design of a proper sensor capable to support long distance
communications in dynamic traffic situations and in unfriendly
atmospheric conditions. Therefore, this paper is focused on the
design of the VLC sensors intended for vehicular communication
applications, offering a review of the solutions found to mitigate
the effect of the problematic conditions. Furthermore, this
paper summarizes these solutions and proposes an environmental
adaptive VLC receiver that would be capable to optimally adjust
its settings in order to maximize the communication efficiency,
but without affecting the communication robustness to noise.
Index Terms— Adaptive sensors, adaptive visible light com-
munications, communication-based vehicle safety applications,
optical sensors, vehicle to vehicle communications.

I. I NTRODUCTION Fig. 1. Visible light communication usage scenario.

A S THE number of vehicles that use the transportation

infrastructure is continuously increasing, so is the num-
ber of victims associated to traffic events, making road acci-
dents one of the leading causes of death [1], [2]. As a response
to this issue, communication-based vehicle safety applications
represent the next generation of vehicle safety systems. In this
case, traffic accidents are prevented by increasing the vehicle
awareness with the help of a communication-based data fusion
process. Thus, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and infrastructure-to-
vehicle (I2V or V2I) communications are used in order to
connect the vehicles and the traffic infrastructures to form a
Vehicle Ad-hoc Network (VANET). In this scenario, wireless
Manuscript received January 26, 2016; accepted February 9, 2016. Date of
publication February 11, 2016; date of current version March 16, 2016. This
work was supported by the Integrated Center for Nanotechnologies, and Dis-
tributed Systems for Fabrication and Control within the Sectoral Operational
Program for Increase of the Economic Competitiveness through the European
Regional Development Fund under Contract 671/09.04.2015. The associate
editor coordinating the review of this paper and approving it for publication
was Dr. Richard T. Kouzes. (Corresponding author: Alin-Mihai Căilean.)
A.-M. Căilean is with the Integrated Center for Research, Development
and Innovation in Advanced Materials, Nanotechnologies, and Distributed
Systems for Fabrication and Control, Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava,
´
Suceava 720229, Romania (e-mail: alinc@eed.usv.ro).
M. Dimian is with the Integrated Center for Research, Development
and Innovation in Advanced Materials, Nanotechnologies, and Distributed
Systems for Fabrication and Control, Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava,
´
Suceava 720229, Romania, and also with the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059 USA
(e-mail: dimian@eed.usv.ro).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2016.2529019
1558-1748 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
communications enable the vehicles to share critical traffic
safety data (e.g. velocity, acceleration/deceleration, direction,
mechanical state, etc.) that can substantially increase traffic
safety. Therefore, it is considered that V2V and I2V commu-
nications have the potential to address up to 81% of all vehicle
crashes [3]. However, supporting vehicular communications
represents a challenging problem due to the strict limits
imposed for reliability and latencies [4]. Mainly aimed for high
density situations, as in crowded cities or highways, Visible
Light Communications (VLC) are considered a promising
complement and/or alternative for the 5.9 GHz [5] radio
frequency communications [6].
VLC is an emerging wireless communication technology in
which the data transfer is achieved by modulating the data
onto the instantaneous power of the light, at speeds much
faster that the human eye can perceive, and without affecting
the lighting function of the device. In transportation, VLC is
favored by the low cost [7] and by the gradual integration
of the LED light sources in road infrastructures (e.g. traffic
lights, street lighting systems, traffic displays) and also in
vehicle lighting systems [8], [9]. Furthermore, as suggested
in [10]–[12], VLC could also offer high accuracy positioning
and localization services. A scenario that illustrates the VLC
usage in transportation is shown in Fig. 1. Traffic safety infor-
mation is geographically broadcasted towards the approaching
vehicles, providing them with information concerning the road
conditions (e.g. intersection data, maintenance work ahead,
2804
speed limits, etc.). By using the front and the rear lights,
this data is forwarded from one vehicle to another, along
with additional information concerning their own status, as
experimentally demonstrated in [13].
VLC in automotive applications began as a major break-
through [14]–[16]. However, the subsequent developments in
the field were rather insufficient to lead towards technology
deployment. Due to the inherent light properties, which pre-
vent severe multipath effects, Doppler spread, and mutual
interferences, VLC are able to offer a very high packet delivery
ratio and reduced latencies [17]–issues that are crucial for
traffic safety applications. However, these applications also
require long-distance transmission and the ability to cope
with the dynamic condition and with the hostile weather
conditions–issues that are currently causing some problems.
In comparison to the high-data rate indoor applica-
tions [18]–[20], the study of VLC usage in automotive appli-
cations has been rather neglected, ignoring the high potential.
In most cases, the research efforts were directed towards
theoretical demonstrations and studies and less on hardware
implementation and experimental demonstrations. The existing
prototypes have been developed focusing on specific issues
and were tested in particular conditions, without considering
all the impediments of the vehicular environment. Therefore,
even if they have high potential, being able to ensure reliable,
long-distance, high-data rate communications [16], [21], the
existing hardware prototypes aren’t able to comply with all the
requirements – further postponing the technology deployment.
In the light of the upper mentioned, this article addresses
the issues concerning the development of the VLC receivers,
offering a review of the existing VLC sensors. Unlike other
surveys on VLC [22], [23], this work focuses exclusively
on the VLC receivers designed for automotive applications.
After debating the specific technical difficulties and their
causes, the paper presents the solutions offered by the existing
literature. However, the article is beyond a review paper
as it is presenting a physical solution to further enhance
the receivers in order to become more compatible to the
requirements imposed by vehicular applications. Therefore,
another important contribution of this article is the introduction
of a new concept in the field – the environment-adaptive VLC
receiver.
II. C ONSIDERATIONS ON VLC R ECEIVERS
H ARDWARE I MPLEMENTATION
The VLC receiver is the most important component of a
VLC system, as its performances are the ones that deter-
mine the overall systems performances. The VLC receiver is
responsible to extract the data from the modulated light beam.
For light sensing, the receivers use either camera systems or
photosensitive elements, generally photodiodes, each with its
own advantages and drawbacks.
A. Camera-Based VLC Receivers
The usage of embedded cameras was considered based on
the fact that new generation vehicles are already equipped
with cameras used for pedestrians and traffic lane detection.
Concerning the camera-based VLC receivers, they have as
main advantage the large field of view (FOV), which enables
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 16, NO. 9, MAY 1, 2016
Fig. 2. Multiple emitter identification and spatial isolation of noise
sources © [2014] IEEE, with permission, from [30].
the sensor to gather information from the entire width of
the road. Furthermore, the camera is able to perceive the
light coming from a long distance, as it is not affected
by optical noise, because in this case, the lens are able to
condense the light, allowing to spatially isolate the parasitic
light sources (Fig. 2).
However, the automotive industry considers the usage of
low-cost cameras, as the ones used in smart-phones. The
noise performances of such CCD (Charge Coupled Device)
cameras are lower than for independent photo-elements.
Furthermore, the performances of such VLC receivers are
also affected by the camera limited number of frames per
second (fps). In these circumstances, such VLC systems can
ensure very low data rates and can cover limited commu-
nication distances (1-2m) [24], [25], being unsuitable for
automotive applications.
Considerably enhanced performances are achieved when
high speed cameras are used [26], [27]. In such cases, in
order to improve the data rates, the traffic light is composed
of a led matrix and the perception, the recognition and the
tracking of the form can be subject to complex processing, as
in [28] and [29]. At short distances, such systems can provide
data rates of about 10 Mb/s, whereas by lowering the data
rate to few kb/s, and by replacing the optical system, commu-
nication distances that go up to 100 m can be achieved [30].
Nevertheless, the camera has to be a high speed camera model,
which is still too expensive for a broad distribution regarding
the automotive industry. Therefore, it can be considered that
such prototypes are mainly reserved for laboratory prototypes.
Besides the high cost, another limitation of camera based
VLC receivers is again caused by the camera’s limited number
of fps. Even in their best available configuration, the cameras
rarely achieve more than 1000 fps. Considering the Shannon’s
sampling theorem, in order to be able to properly decode
messages, the LEDs at the emitter side have to be modulated
at a frequency equal to half the camera’s number of fps.
However, different from other wireless communication tech-
nologies, in VLC, the light carrier is perceivable by the
human eye. Therefore, in order to prevent any noticeable
or perceivable flickering that might affect the human health,
the IEEE 802.15.7 standard for optical communications
using visible light imposes that in outdoor VLC applica-
tions, the modulation should be done using an optical clock
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: TOWARD ENVIRONMENTAL-ADAPTIVE VLCs RECEIVERS FOR AUTOMOTIVE APPLICATIONS: A REVIEW
of 200 or 400 kHz [31]. One could admit that this frequency
is rather overprotective but still, the frequency required by
camera based receivers is quite low and therefore, it might be
perceived by the human eye [32].
B. Photodiode-Based VLC Receivers
On the other hand, photosensing elements like photodetec-
tors are quite efficient regarding noise performances and can
be used over long distances. However, long range induces
small angles and directional conditions. The photosensing
element must be integrated in the vehicle with an optical
system, in order to focus the light and to increase the signal
to noise ratio (SNR). Mechanical and optical systems must
be precisely adjusted since the solid angles are very small.
Active control of the position of the sensing element has
been achieved to enhance the BER and the communication
distance, enabling such receivers to experimentally achieve
communication distances of up to 100 m, even in mobile
conditions [33], [34]. In these cases, low-cost, wide-angle
cameras are used for the traffic light detection. For shorter
ranges, the solid angle of the light emission is wide enough for
a passive photosensing element to be efficient without active
control of the position.
Generally, these VLC receivers use a silicon PIN photodiode
operating in the photoconductive mode. Exposed to light,
the photodiode offers high sensitivity and linear response,
generating a proportional electrical current. Moreover, the pho-
todiode’s quick response enables the possibility of high-speed
communications [33]. The photocurrent is processed using a
transimpedance circuit obtaining a proportional voltage. The
transimpedance circuit has the advantage of low distortion and
large gain bandwidth product, representing a fair trade between
bandwidth and noise [35]. The obtained voltage is then further
processed, by using analog and/or digital techniques, until the
data signal is reconstructed.
In the case of photo-sensors, one of the main challenges is to
minimize the interference of the ambient light. Both artificial
lighting sources and sun light represent major noise sources for
VLC systems, as they occupy a broad section of the spectrum.
Furthermore, in VLC, increasing the transmission power is not
possible, since it depends exclusively on the application and
on the eye safety norms.
III. I SSUES A FFECTING O UTDOOR VLC AND S OME OF
THE C URRENT T RENDS TO M ITIGATE T HEM
The inability to cope with atmospheric effects is one
of the obstacles that hamper VLC automotive applications.
Here, the weather conditions considerably amplify the channel
unpredictability, which represents a major problem affecting
outdoor VLC. As the light does not travel through opaque
surfaces, VLC require line of sight (LoS) propagation.
Atmospheric circumstances, as the snow or the dense dust,
can obstruct part of propagation path, and therefore can cause
significant variations of the received signal intensity, and
thus of the SNR. Furthermore, in rainy conditions, the water
particles absorb optical signals and cause scattering of the
light, further deteriorating the data signal. More perturbing
2805
than rain and snow is the heavy fog, which affects the light
passage through a combination of absorption, scattering and
reflection [36], [37]. An effective solution, capable to ensure
a relatively high SNR, even under heavy fog conditions, is
presented in [38]. Here, a Fresnel lens is used along with
multiple photodiodes. Depending on the incident angle, the
Fresnel lens focuses the light on one of the photodiodes,
and then, the highest received intensity is used in the signal
reconstruction process.
In addition to the upper mentioned problems, the worse is
still to come. The most stringent problem affecting outdoor
VLC is caused by the strong background (parasitic) light
affecting the communication channel [39]. Over the day, the
background noise power varies with approximately 20 dB [40].
As the noise affecting VLC is directly proportional to the
light incident on the photodetector, the sunlight represents
a very powerful noise source. In addition to a very strong
D.C. component, it also introduces a shot noise component –
which represents the main source of perturbation for the
system, leading to errors in message decoding. Furthermore,
if directly facing the VLC receiver, the sunlight can saturate
the photoelement, making it blind, and hence blocking the
communication. However, as pointed out in [17], the sun can
directly face an on-vehicle mounted VLC receiver only in
particular situations, as the sunrise or the sunset.
In order to deal with the problems caused by the parasitic
light, several solutions have been proposed. The most simple
and efficient one is to use an optical collecting system that
limits the receiver’s FOV, and therefore the light incident
on the photoelement [17], [35]. Although this solution is
very efficient in terms of SNR enhancement, it has as a
major disadvantage the fact that it also limits the mobility.
A more complex solution, with promising results is found
in [41]. In this case, a spectrum sensor array [42] is used
along with individual weightings for the individual spectrum
components. The signal reconstruction is made by using a
signal fusion algorithm that uses the weightings of each
spectrum component. This approach could also compensate
for the color specific atmospheric attenuation.
Since one can have very little or no control over the weather
conditions, in most cases, the VLC receiver is designed in
order to face the worst possible scenario, and still support
communication. However, it is quite obvious that under normal
conditions, this approach limits the system performances.
In [43] for example, the receiver was designed in order to
be able to support communication without saturating even in
case of direct sun exposure (up to 100 000 lux). However,
the experimental results have showed that the limited gain
of the pre-amplification stage lead to a significant decrease
in communication distances (up to 15 meters), no matter the
power of the sunlight. Therefore, designing the receiver for
bright sun conditions, limited its performances even when
there was no parasitic (background) light.
A different approach to reduce the influence of the sunlight
and to experimentally achieve a long communication distance
(up to 50 meters with a BER < 10−7 ) is found in [44]. In this
case, the receiver’s FOV was narrowed to ± 10°. As previously
mentioned, narrowing the receiver’s FOV, negatively affects
2806
the mobility. Again, it can be observed that in order to
counteract a particular situation, in which the sun is directly
facing the VLC receiver, the sensor qualities are deteriorated
for all the other possible situations.
In the next example [45], [46], the communication resilience
to noise is enhanced by using a robust modulation technique
based on Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) using
sequence inverse keying, which enable the system to have
a stable communication distance of over 40 m. However,
because of the modulation large bandwidth requirements, the
communication data rate is significantly affected. Here, each
data bit is expanded into a 10 bits sequence, which inverts
according to the data to send. Although the resilience to noise
is greatly enhanced, the communication data rate decreases by
10 times (20 kb/s).
Although the enumeration can go on, we have here three
different examples that illustrate how the receiver perfor-
mances are strongly affected by a drastic response to a specific
problem caused by the atmospheric conditions. It was revealed
that the response to the parasitic sunlight affected in turn
the communication distance, the mobility, and the data rate.
We can imagine that in a similar manner, the response to
strongly mitigate other particular negative situations further
limits the overall system performances.
IV. A DAPTIVE V ISIBLE L IGHT
C OMMUNICATIONS S YSTEM
Within the upper mentioned context, one can see that such
an approach seems to be rather unbalanced. A fair solution
would be to evaluate the type and the intensity of the envi-
ronmental perturbations, and only after to take the adequate
actions to mitigate it. Up until then, the system behavior
should be a moderate one, capable to reject an unexpected
but plausible source of perturbation. However, in order to do
this, the system must be capable to perform a fast but fair
evaluation of the environmental conditions. By using adequate
sensors, the perturbing atmospheric conditions can be detected,
and the communication parameters can be adapted. However,
the system must be an auto-adaptive one, able to control
as many settings as possible. Although the environmental
adaptive functions are mainly referring to VLC receivers, the
overall system performances could be enhanced by adapting
the transmission as well. Following, there are several important
parameters that the system should have control over.
A. Adaptive VLC Transmission
As far as we know, in the up-to-date literature on VLC
systems aimed for automotive applications, there is no case
of environment-adaptive VLC transmissions. An attempt to
introduce an adaptive process in VLC transmissions has been
proposed and developed for almost 10 years by Nogoya
University (Japan). In this case, the transmission data rate is
adapted using a hierarchical coding protocol depending on the
priority of the data. Thus, the high priority data is transmitted
using lower frequency, ensuring enhanced BER performances
and longer communication distances [47]–[50].
Otherwise, the VLC systems are based on an open-loop
implementation in which the transmitter has no information
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 16, NO. 9, MAY 1, 2016
concerning the channel [22]. In order to adapt on the channel
conditions, the emitter would require feedback information.
Concerning the applications that imply bidirectional commu-
nications, as V2V applications, the channel conditions can be
determined based on the received signal. Having in mind that
in VLC, the data is modulated by rapidly switching the light
ON and OFF, these two states can be identified, and therefore,
the SNR can be determined. In the simples form, the currents I,
corresponding for the two states, are given by eq. 1 and 2.
Once the transponder has an estimation of the SNR, it can
decide on the parameters that should be controlled.
I O N = R · PS + R · PBg (1)
I O F F = R · PBg (2)
where R, is the responsivity of the detector (A/W), PS is the
power of the received signal and PBg is the power of the
received background light.
However, due to the highly dynamic conditions, and the
time-varying channel, an external feedback can be rather unre-
liable, and therefore it might be insufficient. Furthermore, in
many cases, vehicle safety applications use event-driven mes-
sages (e.g. the vehicle has an obstacle ahead and it is forced
to suddenly brake), which are broadcast type communications.
In such a case, when lunching the transmission, the emitter has
no external feedback from the receiver. On the other hand, an
emitter equipped with sensors to detect the main factors that
might perturb the communication channel (e.g. strong parasitic
light, fog, snow, rain, dust or distance) could easily estimate
the channel conditions and adapt the transmission parameters
accordingly. In this case, the emitter could adapt the selected
modulation and its frequency, the data rate but also the LED
half power angle (hpa) (emission angle).
As some modulations are more robust than others
(e.g. DSSS more robust that OOK), using adaptive modulation
and channel coding seems a fair deal. Also, as the lower
frequencies are more robust to noise [51], the emitter can
also adapt the modulation frequency. The data rate is another
factor that influences the BER. In this case, by using punc-
tured codes, the data rate can be adapted by using different
puncturing ratios (with more or less parity bits).
The usage of LEDs that have different hpa has as disadvan-
tage the fact that such an emitter has a more complex structure,
and therefore a higher cost. In this case, the emitter should
use LEDs with a narrow emission angle for long distance
transmissions, and LEDs with a wide emission angle for wider
service areas. The later one could be more efficient when one
emitter has to transmit a message for vehicles approaching on
more than one lane.
In conclusion, the design of adaptive transmission
schemes emerges as a promising solution in vehicular
VLC applications.
B. Adaptive VLC Receivers
As upper mentioned, the sun represents the strongest source
of perturbations for vehicular VLC applications. Therefore,
the design of an environmental adaptive VLC receiver should
particularly be focused on finding the optimal ways to mitigate
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: TOWARD ENVIRONMENTAL-ADAPTIVE VLCs RECEIVERS FOR AUTOMOTIVE APPLICATIONS: A REVIEW
Fig. 3. Block diagram of an auto-adaptive visible light communications
system. The VLC receiver, englobes adaptive FOV, AGC, adaptive filters,
adaptive triggering, adaptive decoding. These functions enable it to have an
optimal configuration adapted to the specific atmospheric conditions.
its influence. However, in order to be able to come with a
proper response, the receiver requires up-to-date information
concerning the sun characteristics. Although the sunlight is
considered steady in time, due to the mobile conditions, the
received sunlight intensity can vary significantly depending on
the vehicle direction (heading towards the sun or away from it),
and on the eventual obstacles that can block the sun. Therefore,
the objective would be to determine not only its power, but
also its relative position to the VLC receiver. Also, based on
the assembled data, a prediction on the incident sun power
could be determined. Having this information, enables the
VLC sensor to take the best measures to ensure a reliable link,
without affecting the overall system performances. For exam-
ple, even if the sun is at full power but has a position which
doesn’t allow it to directly face the receiver, the sensor can
adjust its setting to enable a mobile, long-range, high-data rate
communication. Contrariwise, when the strong sun is directly
facing the VLC sensor, it should adjust its setting in order to
still maintain the communication. The following sub-sections
describe the adjustment settings that are (or could be) used
to enhance the performances of VLC receivers for automotive
applications. For a better understanding, all the components
have been put together in a “tuned” VLC receiver (Fig. 3).
1) (Adaptive) Optical Lens to Focus the Light: One of
the simplest and most efficient ways to enhance the SNR
at the receiver side is by using optical lens to focus the
incoming signal on the surface of the sensitive area of
the photodiode [17], [35]. This solution is used in most
of the VLC receivers aimed for long distance communica-
tions [30], [44], [52]. A longer focal length of the lens enables
a longer distance, but it reduces the FOV. Besides being used
at the receiver side, in some cases, optical lens are used at
the emitter side, as well [52], [53]. The impact of the optical
lens on the communication performances is clearly illustrated
in [52]. Here, the communication distance is increased from
1 to 31 meters just by changing the lens at the emitter and at
2807
the receiver. This significant enhancement was achieved by
using an 18° lens at the emitter side (instead of the 120°
beam divergence), and a 25 mm focal length and 25 mm
diameter lens at the emitter side. The importance of the optical
lens is also pointed out in [26]. Here, variable communication
distances are achieved by changing the optical lens, enabling
the VLC sensor to be used for short and for long distances.
As far as we know, there is no case of a VLC system that
uses variable optical lens. However, in order to become more
compatible to vehicular applications, the systems could use
an adaptive optical lens mechanism, as the ones used in photo
cameras.
2) Adaptive Field of View: In vehicular applications, a nar-
row FOV receiver is a significant impediment, as it limits the
mobility [54], [55]. However, as upper mentioned, narrowing
the FOV represents one of the simplest techniques to enhance
the SNR in sunny conditions.
In the presence of background light sources, the light
incident on the receiver contains mostly parasitic light, which
introduces a strong shot noise component, leading to a sig-
nificant depreciation of the SNR [35]. The shot noise Ishot
induced by the background light is given by eq. 3.
Ishot = 2q · Inoise · B (3)
where q is the electronic charge (q = 1.602·10−19 coulombs),
B is the detector bandwidth and Inoise is photocurrent pro-
duced by the noise.
Here, the noise results from the photocurrent produced by
the incident background light, Inoise , which is given by eq. 4.
Inoise = R · PReceived Noise (4)
where R is the photodetector responsivity in A/W and
PReceived Noise is the intensity of the incident background noise
in W/cm2 . The power of the received noise is given by eq. 5.
PReceived Noise = PBackground · si n(F OV ) (5)
where PBackground is the power of the background noise.

PBackground = PDi 2
f f use + PDirect
2 (6)
where PDi f f use is the power of the diffuse light and PDirect
is the power of the light directly incident on the receiver, and
is given by eq. 7.
PDirect = P(Sun)Light · cos(θ ) (7)
where θ is the angle between the sun and the receiver:

θ, θ < F OV
θ= (8)
90, θ ≥ F OV
As it can be observed, the amount of received noise is
strongly dependent on the FOV. Under these conditions, to
understate the effect of the background light, the usage of
an optical concentrator is an effective solution [35]. The
optical concentrator reduces the receiver’s FOV and increases
the robustness against noise from daylight or from other
2808
VLC transmitters [17]. The concentrator comes with an addi-
tional gain which is given by eq. 9.
⎧ a communication distance of up to 20 meters.
⎨ n2
, 0 ≤ ψ ≤ F OV
g(ψ) = si n F OV
2 (9)
⎩ IEEE 802.15.7 standard specifies for outdoor VLC applica-
0, ψ > F OV,
where n is the optical concentrator refractive index and ψ is
the angle of incidence with respect to the receiver axis.
The effect of the FOV on the data signal is given by eq. 10.
I Signal = R · P Signal · Ae f f (ψ) (10)
where Ae f f is the effective photodetector area and is given by
eq. 11.
 reconstruction process, the filtering mechanism should be able
A cos ψ, ψ < F OV
Ae f f (ψ) = FOV < π/2 (11)
0, ψ > F OV,
In bright sun conditions, reducing the receiver FOV miti-
gates the effect of the background light but has the drawback
of narrowing the service area, which accordingly reduces
the mobility. Under these conditions, selecting the optical
concentrator’s FOV represents a trade-off between SNR and
mobility.
As observed from eq.11, by narrowing the FOV also affects
the power of the received data signal. In high brightness
conditions, the effect of the narrowing is a positive one,
because the lost signal power is low, compared to the power
of the rejected noise. However, in the absence of parasitic light,
the narrow FOV decreases the SNR, since it prevents part of
the optical power containing the data to reach the receiver.
Based on previous considerations, the usage of an adaptive
FOV receiver could lead to improved performances both in
luminous and in dark conditions. In the presence of strong
background light, the FOV should be reduced, whereas in the
absence of noise sources, the FOV should be increased in order
to enhance mobility and to increase the quantity of received
light.
In indoor applications, the receiver FOV is enhanced by
using angle diversity receivers (ADRs). These receivers con-
tain either multiple narrow FOV [56], [57] or different FOV
photodiodes [58], [59]. The produced photocurrent is than
processed using different signal combining techniques to opti-
mize system performances.
3) Automatic (Adaptive) Gain Control: VANETs are char-
acterized as highly dynamic environments as the vehicles
are continuously changing their location. As a consequence,
the emitter-receiver distance is also changing, and thus the
intensity of the received data signal. Experimental evaluations
have showed that in mobile conditions, a static value of
the amplification can lead to photodiode saturation (at short
emitter-receiver distance) or to insufficient signal amplifica-
tion (at long emitter-receiver distance) [43]. Hence, using an
automatic gain control (AGC) stage to compensate for the
vehicle movement can significantly enhance communication
performances, ensuring a low BER for the entire length of the
service area, as in [44]. A different solution to compensate
for the variation of the input power is found in [53]. Here,
the output of the transimpedance circuit is fed to a limiting
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 16, NO. 9, MAY 1, 2016
amplifier which offers a constant output value, regardless the
input signal power. In this case, the system was able to achieve
4) Adaptive Filters and/or Optical Filters: Although the
tions the usage of a constant modulation frequency, it has been
showed that in VLC, the lower modulation frequencies are
more robust to noise, especially when digital signal processing
techniques are used [51]. As a consequence, it is only straight-
forward, to use lower frequencies when high levels of noise
are detected. In this case, the receiver requires an adaptive
filtering mechanism, able to adjust on the frequency of the
incoming messages. In addition to the filters used during the
to adjust the transimpedance circuit’s bandwidth B. Control-
ling the bandwidth is important, as it is directly influences
the signal shot noise component (eq. 3). In this case, the
bandwidth B is given by eq. 12.

GBP
B= (12)
2π Rgain (C p + C)
where GBP is the gain-bandwidth product of the operational
amplifier, Rgain the gain resistance, C p the capacitive part of
the photodetector and C the capacitive part of the amplifier.
Besides using adaptive filters for adapting to different
noise levels, they could also be used for parallel commu-
nications [60] or Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO)
applications [61].
A different approach to address the problem of intense
background light in vehicular applications is the use optical
filters. In [40], the authors propose a selective combining
receiver which consists of more than one front-end, each
with a narrow (40 nm) optical bandpass filter for specific
wavelengths (colors). Although this method implies a more
complex design and involves signal processing, it enhances the
overall system performances, enabling a robust communication
at any daytime, as it rejects a larger amount of background
noise.
5) Adaptive Derivation for an Enhanced Signal Reconstruc-
tion: Using an adaptive derivation mechanism to improve the
signal reconstruction process represents an efficient way to
enhance the VLC receiver resilience to noise. This technique is
very effective in low SNR applications because it significantly
reduces the noise effect on the pulse width, and reduces the
pulse distortions. The method is based on high pass derivation,
which removes the signal DC component and enables very
precise edge identification. Unlike the standard filtering, in this
case the main objective is to amplify the signal edges rather
than to completely eliminate the noise. As shown in Fig. 4,
with this method, the signal reconstruction process is primarily
based on the pulse width rather than the pulse amplitude. This
fact allows for significant variations of the signal intensity level
without affecting the message reconstruction and the decoding
process. Thus, the receiver becomes less dependent on the
power of the received data signal. In vehicular applications,
this is a great advantage as due to the highly dynamic
conditions, the emitter-receiver distance, and in consequence
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: TOWARD ENVIRONMENTAL-ADAPTIVE VLCs RECEIVERS FOR AUTOMOTIVE APPLICATIONS: A REVIEW
Fig. 4. Example of electric signals on the VLC sensor; (a) output of the pre-
conditioning board; (b) output of the derivative conditioning part; it can be
seen how the signal edges are amplified and that the abrupt pulses (red signal)
emphasizes the front edges (blue signal); and (c) output of the decoding and
decision block. © [2015] Reprinted, with permission, from [44].
the power of the received signal, are rapidly changing. The
strong merits of this signal processing technique have been
experimentally confirmed in [44].
6) Adaptive Triggering: Considering the unpredictability of
the VLC channel, the performances of VLC sensors could be
further improved with the integration of an adaptive triggering
mechanism. Although the AGC is aiming to compensate for
the received signal intensity variations, whereas the adaptive
triggering enables the signal reconstruction mainly based on
pulse width and less on pulse amplitude, the adaptive trigger-
ing can further enhance the signal reconstruction process.
Unlike the traditional method, which uses predefined thresh-
old values for the square pulse reconstruction, adaptive trigger-
ing uses multi-level triggering based on an adaptive threshold
computing algorithm. Accordingly, the thresholds do not have
a predefined value, but have a value which is continuously
updating, based on an analysis of the signal, considering
previous min, max, mean values and also integrates a signal
prediction algorithm. An example of such an approach and
how it prevents false triggering can be found in [51] and [62].
7) Adaptive Data Decoding: According to the
IEEE 802.15.7 standard, outdoor applications use two
types of modulation: on-off-keying (OOK) with Manchester
coding and data rates between 11.67 – 100 kb/s, and variable
pulse position modulation (VPPM) with 4B6B coding and data
rates between 35.56 – 266.6 kb/s. Thus, OOK is considered
suitable for applications in which the communication distance
is more important than the data rate, whereas VPPM for
the opposite situations. Moreover, as previously mentioned,
DSSS modulation could further enhance the communication
robustness to noise, whereas others studies proposed different
modulation and coding techniques for particular situations
and conditions [49], [63]–[65]. Whatever the options that will
be selected for road applications, one can expect that more
than one modulation and coding technique will be used.
2809
In this context, the data decoding unit has to be able to
decode messages using different modulation and coding tech-
niques. Therefore, the receiver should be able first to identify
the modulation and the coding. The simplest solution for this
issue is to provide this information in the message header.
Accordingly, in order to be sure that this data is received,
the header should be granted with highest priority and there-
fore it should be transmitted using a secure configuration
(e.g. robust modulation, simple and secure coding, low-data
rate, header check sequence). Next, after recovering the data
from the header, the data processing unit adjusts the receiver
settings and then, it processes and decodes the rest of the data
message.
V. C ONCLUSIONS
After a promising start, the evolution of the automotive
application VLC receivers got rather neglected, which lead
to relatively few major breakthroughs. However, in order to
fully comply with the requirements imposed for vehicular
communications, the performances of these VLC systems have
to be further enhanced. After reviewing the solutions proposed
for solving different particular situations, it got obvious that
due to the multitude of problems and traffic situations, a
receiver designed for a specific circumstance is less fit for
other conditions. Therefore, developing adaptive VLC systems
can improve the overall performances without affecting the
communication robustness. Such a system becomes much
closer in fully complying with the requirements involved by
vehicular applications.
In the upper mentioned context, this article has intro-
duced for the first time the concept of environment-adaptive
VLC receiver, concept which has the perspective to open
an unexploited research path in the field of automotive
VLC sensors.
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Alin-Mihai Căilean received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering and the
M.S. degree in computer and communication networks from the University of
Suceava, Romania, in 2009 and 2011, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree after
a joint program between the University of Versailles St. Quentin en Yvelines
(France) and the University of Suceava in 2014. He is currently a Researcher
with the University of Suceava. His main research area is related to visible
light communications, wireless sensors, and vehicle safety applications.
Mihai Dimian received the B.S. degree in mathematics and physics and the
M.S. degree in dynamical systems from the University of Iassy, Romania, in
1997 and 2001, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
from the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, in 2005. He performed
post-doctoral research with the Max Planck Institute, Leipzig, Germany. He is
an Associate Professor at Howard University, Washington, DC, USA, and a
Professor at Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Romania. His research
´
interests are focused on fluctuations and noise in nanoelectronics, stochastic
aspects of hysteresis, multiscale analysis, and modeling.