The solid-state lighting is revolutionizing the indoor illumination. Current incandescent and fluorescent lamps are being replaced by the LEDs at a rapid pace. Apart from extremely high energy efficiency, the LEDs have other advantages such as longer lifespan, lower heat generation, and improved color rendering without using harmful chemicals. One additional benefit of LEDs is that they are capable of switching to different light intensity at a very fast rate. This functionality has given rise to a novel communication technology (known as visible light communication—VLC) where LED luminaires can be used for high speed data transfer. This survey provides a technology overview and review of existing literature of visible light communication and sensing. This paper provides a detailed survey of 1) visible light communication system and characteristics of its various components such as transmitter and receiver; 2) physical layer properties of visible light communication channel, modulation methods, and MIMO techniques; 3) medium access techniques; 4) system design and programmable platforms; and 5) visible light sensing and application such as indoor localization, gesture recognition, screen-camera communication, and vehicular networking. We also outline important challenges that need to be addressed in order to design high-speed mobile networks using visible light communication.

Visible Light Communication, Networking, and Sensing: A Survey, Potential and Challenges

This paper attempts to clarify the difference between visible light communication (VLC) and light-fidelity (LiFi). In particular, it will show how LiFi takes VLC further by using light emitting diodes (LEDs) to realise fully networked wireless systems. Synergies are harnessed as luminaries become LiFi attocells resulting in enhanced wireless capacity providing the necessary connectivity to realise the Internet-of-Things, and contributing to the key performance indicators for the fifth generation of cellular systems (5G) and beyond. It covers all of the key research areas from LiFi components to hybrid LiFi/wireless fidelity (WiFi) networks to illustrate that LiFi attocells are not a theoretical concept any more, but at the point of real-world deployment.

What is LiFi

Visible Light Communication (VLC) is an emerging field in Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) which utilizes the superior modulation bandwidth of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) to transmit data. In modern day communication systems, the most popular frequency band is Radio Frequency (RF) mainly due to little interference and good coverage. However, the rapidly dwindling RF spectrum along with increasing wireless network traffic has substantiated the need for greater bandwidth and spectral relief. By combining illumination and communication, VLC provides ubiquitous communication while addressing the shortfalls and limitations of RF communication. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on VLC with an emphasis on challenges faced in indoor applications over the period 1979–2014. VLC is compared with infrared (IR) and RF systems and the necessity for using this beneficial technology in communication systems is justified. The advantages of LEDs compared to traditional lighting technologies are discussed and comparison is done between different types of LEDs currently available. Modulation schemes and dimming techniques for indoor VLC are discussed in detail. Methods needed to improve VLC system performance such as filtering, equalization, compensation, and beamforming are also presented. The recent progress made by various research groups in this field is discussed along with the possible applications of this technology. Finally, the limitations of VLC as well as the probable future directions are presented.

LED Based Indoor Visible Light Communications: State of the Art

The increasing capability for manufacturing a wide variety of optoelectronic devices from polymer and polymer–silicon hybrids, including transmission fibre, modulators, detectors and light sources, suggests that organic photonics has a promising future in communications and other applications.

Organic photonics for communications

We present theoretical and simulation results for the performance of asymmetrically-clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM) and DC-biased optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM) in AWGN for intensity-modulated direct-detection systems. Constellations from 4 QAM to 1024 QAM are considered. For DCO-OFDM, the optimum bias depends on the constellation size which limits its performance in adaptive systems. ACO-OFDM requires less optical power for a given data rate than DCO-OFDM for all but the largest constellations and is better suited to adaptive systems as the same structure is optimum for all constellations.

Comparison of Asymmetrically Clipped Optical OFDM and DC-Biased Optical OFDM in AWGN

A novel concept of pulse-amplitude-modulated discrete multitone modulation (PAM-DMT) is presented. It is shown that by pulse amplitude modulation of the subcarriers used, the resulting PAM-DMT time signal can be clipped asymmetrically to achieve a unipolar signal for transmission. The distortion resulting from this asymmetric clipping is orthogonal to the information signal itself, causing no additional penalty. Especially in intensity-modulated direct-detection optical channels, where a unipolar signal is to be transmitted, it is shown that this idea can improve system performance.

PAM-DMT for Intensity-Modulated and Direct-Detection Optical Communication Systems

Wireless transmission exceeding 100 Mbit/s is demonstrated using a phosphorescent white-light LED in a lighting-like scenario. The data rate was achieved by detecting the blue part of the optical spectrum and applying discrete multi-tone modulation.

Wireless High-Speed Data Transmission with Phosphorescent White-Light LEDs

A combination of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and compatible single-sideband modulation (CompSSB) using a standard direct-detection scheme is suggested to overcome chromatic dispersion without explicit compensation. Since the proposed type of SSB modulation does not require a spectral gap between optical carrier and subcarriers, it is highly spectrally efficient and the complexity in the analogue part is reduced compared to known direct-detection schemes for OFDM.

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Spectrally Efficient Compatible Single-Sideband Modulation for OFDM Transmission With Direct Detection

In the context of communications based on light-emitting diodes (LEDs), spectrally efficient modulation has been considered for overcoming their limited bandwidth, and one scheme under investigation is quadrature-amplitude modulation on discrete multitones. The dependence of the output optical power on the driving current of practical LEDs is nonlinear, which distorts the transmitted signal. We investigate the impact of the nonlinear LED transfer function, i.e., the dependence of the emitted optical power on the driving current, on discrete multitone modulation. The effect incurred by this distortion was analyzed by using detailed numerical simulations addressing the impact of clipping, individual subcarriers, signal-to-noise ratio, and bit-error ratio. The approach was generalized to describe the impact of the nonlinearity of arbitrary LEDs and laser diodes, resulting in a powerful tool for assessing the impact of the nonlinearity on the link performance. This approach was applied to three types of LED, showing anything from a minuscule effect to the case in which error-free data transmission is made impossible by the transfer-function nonlinearity.

Impact of LED Nonlinearity on Discrete Multitone Modulation

The use of standard 1-mm core-diameter step-index plastic optical fiber (SI-POF) has so far been mainly limited to distances of up to 100 m and bit-rates in the order of 100 Mbit/s. By use of digital signal processing, transmission performance of such optical links can be improved. Among the different technical solutions proposed, a promising one is based on the use of discrete multitone (DMT) modulation, directly applied to intensity-modulated, direct detection (IM/DD) SI-POF links. This paper presents an overview of DMT over SI-POF and demonstrates how DMT can be used to improve transmission rate in such IM/DD systems. The achievable capacity of an SI-POF channel is first analyzed theoretically and then validated by experimental results. Additionally, first experimental demonstrations of a real-time DMT over SI-POF system are presented and discussed.

S.C.J. Lee

Papers

PAM-DMT for Intensity-Modulated and Direct-Detection Optical Communication Systems

Wireless High-Speed Data Transmission with Phosphorescent White-Light LEDs

Spectrally Efficient Compatible Single-Sideband Modulation for OFDM Transmission With Direct Detection

Impact of LED Nonlinearity on Discrete Multitone Modulation

Discrete Multitone Modulation for Maximizing Transmission Rate in Step-Index Plastic Optical Fibers