1

Visible Light Communications

Hoa Le Minh and Zabih Ghassemlooy

Optical Communications Research Group (OCRG)
School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences
Northumbria University, United Kingdom
hoa.le-minh@northumbria.ac.uk

(ERASMUS Framework)


2
Presentation Outline
Optical wireless communications backgrounds
Visible Light Communications
Light Sources
Current technologies
Challenges
Organic Light Source
Summary
3
Why Optical Wireless?
RF spectrum:
crowded, expensive

OW spectrum:
free, large bandwidth
4
Optical Wireless Applications
(short range)
Traffic Communications
Public data broadcasting
Indoor broadband broadcasting in Hospital
/ Supermarket / University / Office
Home Access Networks
Military Communications
Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Iasi, Romania, 13/06/2011
5
Applications
Beam reflection (directional)
Source: Discovery Channel
Flame
Probably the first ever applications in visible light communications
6
OW Apps: Indoor Broadband
Source: Oxford University
(OMEGA project)
7
Apps: Traffic Communications
FSO
M Kavehrad
PSU, USA
8
Research in VLC
VLCC (Casio, NEC, Panasonic Electric Works,
Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, NTT, Docomo)
OMEGA (EU Framework 7)
IEEE 802.15 Wireless Personal Area Network standards
Boston University
Siemens
France Telecom
Oxford University
Edinburgh University
Northumbria University
Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Iasi, Romania, 13/06/2011
9
General Lighting Sources
Incandescent bulb
First industrial light source
5% light, 95% heat
Few thousand hours of life
Fluorescent lamp
White light
25% light
10,000s hours
Solid-state light emitting diode (LED)
Compact
50% light
More than 50,000 hours lifespan
10
Light Source Spectrum
IR UV
Wavelength (m)
N
o
r
m
a
l
i
s
e
d

p
o
w
e
r
/
u
n
i
t

w
a
v
e
l
e
n
g
t
h

0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
0
.
3

0
.
4

0
.
5

0
.
6

0
.
7

0
.
8

0
.
9

1
.
0

1
.
1

1
.
2

1
.
3

1
.
4

1
.
5

Sun
Fluorescent
Incandescent
Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Iasi, Romania, 13/06/2011
11
LED Fundamental
Light Emitting Diode (LED)
12
White-Light LED
LED types:
RGB Blue chip + Phosphor OLED
Well-known technology, limited
use, problem with balancing
each R, G, B component to
create white light
Popular for today general
lighting, efficient and cheap
New technology,
expensive and short life
time. It is, however, very
potential
Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Iasi, Romania, 13/06/2011
13
VLC Transceivers


Input
data signal
Modulators LED array
LPF
Pre-
amplifier
PD
L
DC
R
Concentrator
Optical receiver
Transmitter
Recovered
data signal

DC arm
Inductance (Lseries)
High-speed
buffer
Resonant
Capacitor (C)
DC bias current
from Laser driver
Luxeon LED, R
Signal
Bias Tee A
Z
Individual LED driving circuit
DC current: for illumination (provide sufficient brightness)
Signal: Data for communications
14
Pre-Equalisation

Data
LED
DC
current
source
Bias-
Tee
C
1

R
1

PIN
Oscilloscope
Amplifier
Concentrator
Blue
filter
Pre- Equalizer
C
2

Beam-
shaping lens
R
2

driver 1
driver 2
driver 3
White
light
Blue
light

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
10
-6
10
-5
10
-4
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
Data rate (Mbit/s)
B
E
R


Blue-filtering
Pre-Equalization
45 MHz equalized bandwidth achieved
80 Mbit/s OOK-NRZ transmission
VLC link configuration
Equalization
BER performance
Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Iasi, Romania, 13/06/2011
15
Cellular VLC
Transmitter
Board with core
Indoor channel
receiver
d1
H
r1
r2
a

receiver
- User is highly mobile
- Cellular structure and cell handover strategy are being developed
- Cell size and transmit power are optimised
-36
-34
-33
-32
-30
-28
-28 -28
-28
-28
-28
-26
-26
-26
-26
-26
-26
-24
receiver plane coordinate(mm)
r
e
c
e
i
v
e
r

p
l
a
n
e

c
o
o
r
d
i
n
a
t
e
(
m
m
)
-1000 -500 0 500 1000
-1000
-500
0
500
1000
16
MIMO VLC Channel Matrix
Tx1 Tx2 Tx3 Tx4
4Rx
(
(
(
(

=
44 43 42 41
34 33 32 31
24 23 22 21
14 13 12 11
H H H H
H H H H
H H H H
H H H H
H
Issue:
If there is a geometry symmetry

rank(H) < 4
17

Thank you
Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi, Iasi, Romania, 13/06/2011