Performance Analysis on Hybrid OOK-and-OFDM Modulation in VLC System

• Core Innovation & Objective • Developed a novel, integrated system architecture combining a modified USRP X310 software-defined radio platform with a custom-designed high-power LED optical transceiver. • Achieved high-speed, low-latency, and highly reliable audio-video transmission over Visible Light Communication (VLC) for intelligent transportation and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) applications, particularly in electromagnetically sensitive environments. • Key Technical Breakthroughs • LED Bandwidth Extension: Designed an innovative active pre-equalization circuit (based on a 4th-order high-pass RC bypass and op-amps) that dramatically increased the 3dB modulation bandwidth of a commercial 15W LED from 3 MHz to 120 MHz. • High-Speed Modulation: Successfully implemented 64QAM-OFDM modulation/demodulation using GNU Radio on the USRP, enabling spectrally efficient data transmission. • Advanced Optical Design: Custom-designed optical lenses (transmitter and receiver) and a high-power Bias-T circuit for efficient AC/DC coupling, ensuring the LED operates in its linear region and maximizing optical power transfer. • Stable Link Performance: Incorporated an Automatic Gain Control (AGC) circuit at the receiver, stabilizing the output voltage between 1.2V - 2.0V and maintaining a modulation signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) > 23 dB over varying distances. • Outstanding System Performance • The experimentally demonstrated performance metrics are exceptional for a VLC system: • Peak Data Rate: 500 Mbps • Communication Distance: 0 - 110 meters • Bit Error Rate (BER): As low as 1.74 × 10⁻⁵ (far below the 1 × 10⁻⁴ target) • End-to-End Latency: < 0.1 s • Beam Angle: 11.5° (Transmitter) • Field of View (FOV): ≤ 18° (Receiver) • System Integration and Design • Hardware-Software Co-Design: Seamless integration of the USRP X310 (handling digital baseband processing) with the custom analog optical front-end. • Compact and Practical: The system is designed for external mounting on vehicles, offering a practical solution for real-world deployment. • Simulation-Guided Design: Used LightTools for optical design and Optisystem for communication link simulation to validate the design before implementation. • Significance and Application Value • Solves Critical Challenges: Provides a high-speed, secure, and EMI-free communication alternative to traditional RF in environments like military operations, petroleum facilities, and intelligent transportation systems. • 6G Potential: Serves as a practical reference for the development of VLC as a complementary technology in 6G networks. • Demonstrates Feasibility: Successfully proves the viability of using commercial LEDs and USRP platforms for building high-performance, medium-to-long-range optical communication systems. • This work represents a significant step forward in practical high-speed VLC system design, combining theoretical innovation with robust engineering to achieve state-of-the-art performance. Existing vehicular VLC systems suffer from limited bandwidth, short transmission distances, low data rates, and support only a narrow range of communication services. To address these issues, this paper proposes a vehicle-mounted high-speed LED visible light communication (VLC) system based on Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP). Leveraging 64QAM-OFDM digital modulation, an improved USRP X310 hardware platform, and a PC, we establish a novel architecture comprising digital baseband and optical transceiver modules. The baseband module eliminates traditional spectrum-shifting circuits and antennas, retaining only FPGA and ADC/DAC units. Audio/video files undergo 64QAM-OFDM modulation directly on the PC, with modulated signals output via DAC to a custom-designed wide-bandwidth LED transceiver. A broadband hardware equalization network based on a fourth-order RC bypass circuit was designed expands the 3dB bandwidth of high-power LEDs from 3 MHz to 120 MHz. Combined with automatic gain control (AGC), this achieves an optical transceiver with 12–15 W output power, >23 dB optical modulation signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and stable receiver output voltage (1.2–2.0 V). The resulting compact system delivers low latency, high data rates, and high reliability. Under aligned optical path conditions, the system achieves >1 Mbit/s at 110 m (BER 0.49 × 10⁻⁵, delay 0.009-0.05s) and a peak rate of 500 Mbit/s at 10 m (BER 7.4 × 10⁻⁵), with an 11.5° transmit angle and a receiver field of view (FOV) of less than 18°. This work demonstrates the feasibility of high-power LED-based 64QAM-OFDM communication using USRP X310 for medium- to long-range vehicular links, providing a reference for intelligent transportation systems.

We propose a configuration of a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)-visible light communication (VLC) system using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation and an adaptive Nyquist windowing of the OFDM signal in the receiver. Based on this configuration, we demonstrate a 750-Mb/s WDM-VLC transmission based on RGB light-emitting diode (LED) with a distance of 70 cm. The measured bit error rate (BER) for all channels are under the pre-forward error correction limit of 3.8 \times 10-3. The BER performances of all the channels of the proposed WDM-VLC system show considerable improvement compared with those of the system without Nyquist windowing.

Smart city planners pay more attention towards visible light communication (VLC) system to achieve seamless high speed connectivity. A light emitting diode (LED) acts as a transmitter in VLC system. However, the nonlinear characteristics and dimming nature of LED limits the performance of the VLC system by degrading the quality of transmitted signal. In this paper, we propose an adaptive-learning-architecture (ALA) based predistortion technique to estimate and compensate for LED nonlinearities as well as increase the spectral efficiency of a VLC system. A DC-biased optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DCO-OFDM) signal is considered. The performance with and without predistorter is analysed assuming optical line-of-sight (LOS) channel. It is shown that degradation due to LED nonlinearity can be compensated by using ALA-based predistortion, and the overall Predistorter-LED system is able to approach near-linear performance. Further, we investigate the impact of dimming on the performance of nonlinear LED in VLC system. Simulation results based on symbol error rate (SER), amplitude distortion (AM/AM) curves and constellation plots validate the performance of our proposed technique.

The exponential rise in wireless communication demands and allied applications have revitalized academia-industries to develop an efficient and potential solution. Furthermore, the high-pace increasing scarcity of radio spectrum has also alarmed researchers to achieve better Quality of Service (QoS) centric solution. To meet such demands Visible Light Communication (VLC) systems have gained global attention; however, up surging high rate, range and reliability (3R) needs demand better performance. Towards these goals, Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) based VLC systems is an efficient approach; though its efficacy under Multiple Users (MU) conditions remains least explored. Enabling MIMO-MU based VLC can achieve 3R objectives effectively; however, factors like multipath attenuation, interferences and varied impairment-affects makes classical approached confined. The MIMO-MU VLC systems require robust error, noise or interference resilient transmission even under adverse conditions such as non-linear LED, multipath attenuation and interference. Towards these objectives, in this paper a highly robust MIMO-MU VLC system is developed that incorporates an augmented MIMO channel design and combined pre-coding and post equalization schemes. To alleviate major interference probability in MIMO-MU environment, proposed model incorporates time (delay)-multiplexing based data transmission followed by signal adaptive precoding and Volterra Kernel based Hybrid-equalizer. This approach enables interference and noise removal as well as LED non-linearity handling under MIMO-MU VLC communication. The use of a Volterra Kernel based Decision Feedback Equalization with both linear as well as non-linear equalization enables proposed VLC system to exhibit low Bit Error Rate with low modulation index and taps, that optimizes trade-off between performance as well as complexity.

In visible light communication (VLC) system, the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique has been widely used to achieve a high data rate transmission. However, OFDM will cause high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) in the VLC system. In this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a new interleaved Discrete Fourier Transform Spread Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (DFT-S OFDM) method. We compare the interleaved DFT-S technique to other PAPR reduction techniques, such as Clipping OFDM and conventional DFT-S. The experimental results show that interleaved DFT-S achieve FEC threshold for an overall 2.0Gb/s 32QAM signal over the 1.05m transmission. In addition, interleaved DFT-S presents significant PAPR reduction, low complexity and optimal BER performance, when compared to other techniques.

Visible light communication (VLC) enables high speed wireless communication along with fulfilling the illumination requirement in the indoor environment. In this paper, we investigate the performance of a VLC system under multiple reflection condition. We minimize the effect of intersymbol interference (ISI) by using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). Particularly the use of guard interval (GI) in OFDM is utilized to mitigate intersymbol interference. We performed simulation using MATLAB to demonstrate the performance of our proposed VLC system. Simulation results show that the use of guard interval significantly reduces the ISI and hence improves bit error rate (BER) performance.

Visible light communication (VLC) system based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is promising for its ability to link a huge number of devices with high reliability and low latency. However, OFDM-based VLC systems are very sensitive to the symbol timing offsets. Thus, synchronisation algorithm is very important for OFDM-based VLC system. In this study, the authors first propose zero correlation code pair (ZCC pair) and investigate the periodical impulse-shaped correlation property of ZCC pair. Then the authors propose a novel timing offset estimation algorithm based on ZCC pair. The preamble is processed via peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction algorithms to overcome the PAPR problem in VLC systems. This algorithm achieves high accuracy and has low synchronisation error probability. The effectiveness of the authors' proposed algorithm has been demonstrated using computer simulation under non-light-of-sight VLC and Gaussian channels. The results show that the authors' algorithm outperforms the Schmidl Cox's and Park's algorithms in terms of synchronisation error probability and mean square error of timing error.

The enhanced proliferation of connected entities needs a deployment of innovative technologies for the next generation wireless networks. One of the critical concerns, however, is the spectrum scarcity, due to the unprecedented broadcast penetration rate nowadays. Based on this, visible light communication (VLC) has recently emerged as a viable solution to secure high-speed communications. VLC, a high data rate communication technology, has proven its stature as a promising complementary to its radio frequency (RF) counterpart. VLC is a cost-effective, energy-efficient, and secure technology that exploits the current infrastructure, specifically within indoor and underwater environments. Yet, despite their appealing capabilities, VLC systems face several limitations which constraint their potentials such as LED’s limited bandwidth, dimming, flickering, line-of-sight (LOS) requirement, impact of harsh weather conditions, noise, interference, shadowing, transceiver alignment, signal decoding complexity, and mobility issue. Consequently, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has been considered an effective technique to circumvent these shortcomings. The NOMA scheme has emerged as a revolutionary paradigm to address the shortcomings of VLC systems. The potentials of NOMA are to increase the number of users, system’s capacity, massive connectivity, and enhance the spectrum and energy efficiency in future communication scenarios. Motivated by this, the presented study offers an overview of NOMA-based VLC systems. This article provides a broad scope of existing research activities of NOMA-based VLC systems. This article aims to provide firsthand knowledge of the prominence of NOMA and VLC and surveys several NOMA-enabled VLC systems. We briefly highlight the potential and capabilities of NOMA-based VLC systems. In addition, we outline the integration of such systems with several emerging technologies such as intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS), orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Furthermore, we focus on NOMA-based hybrid RF/VLC networks and discuss the role of machine learning (ML) tools and physical layer security (PLS) in this domain. In addition, this study also highlights diverse and significant technical hindrances prevailing in NOMA-based VLC systems. We highlight future research directions, along with provided insights that are envisioned to be helpful towards the effective practical deployment of such systems. In a nutshell, this review highlights the existing and ongoing research activities for NOMA-based VLC systems, which will provide sufficient guidelines for research communities working in this domain and it will pave the way for successful deployment of these systems.

Visible Light Communication (VLC) is a cutting-edge transmission technique where data is sent by modulating light intensity. Manchester On–Off Keying (OOK) is among the most used modulation techniques in VLC and is normed by IEEE 802.15.7 standard for wireless networks. Various Manchester decoder schemes are documented in the literature, often leveraging minimal two-level analog-to-digital converters followed by straightforward digital logic. These methods often compromise performance for simplicity. However, the VLC applications in fields like automotive and/or aerospace require the maximum performance in terms of bit error rate (BER) with respect to Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), together with a real-time low-latency implementation. In this work, we introduce a high-performance Manchester decoder and detail its implementation in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The decoder operates by acquiring a fully resolved signal (12-bit resolution) and by calculating the phase of the transmitted bit. Additionally, the proposed decoder achieves and maintains synchronization with the incoming signal, tolerating frequency shifts and jitter up to 1%. The Manchester decoder was tested in a VLC system with automotive-certified headlamps, realizing an IEEE 802.15.7-compliant link at 100 kb/s. The proposed decoder ensures a BER below 10−2 for SNR &gt; −12 dB and, compared to a standard decoder, achieves the same BER when the input signal has an SNR of 10 dB lower.

The integration of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) has become a common approach for reducing traffic congestion and enhancing the safety of roadways and underground tunnels. Visible light communication (VLC) has emerged as a promising alternative for vehicular environments, offering unlicensed optical spectrum, high data rates, and immunity to radio frequency (RF) interference. This study examines the performance of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based VLC system employing Bose–Chaudhuri–Hocquenghem (BCH) coding for error correction, aiming to explore the physical layer characteristics of VLC systems in a vehicular tunnel environment. By utilizing MATLAB as a simulation tool, the channel model was analyzed by incorporating the line of sight (LOS) and non-line of sight (NLOS) propagation models, dynamic speed, and various data rates. At a vehicle speed of around 50 km/h, the simulated scenario was capable of attaining a bit error rate (BER) of 3.5 × 10−5 when the data rate was 1.5 Mbps. However, for a data rate of 2.4 Mbps, the BER value was 0.18 %, with a significant increment when exhibiting high speed due to the instant change in the channel conditions. The results offer valuable insights into the feasibility of VLC in underground tunnels and highlight the critical trade-offs between data rate, mobility, and link reliability in dynamic vehicular environments.

In this paper, we propose to apply the chaotic sequences to identify the users in high data rate visible light communication (VLC) system, and present a novel Logistics Iterative-chaotic-map-with-infinite-collapses Over Sampled Chaotic Map (L-I-OSCM) to generate the chaotic sequences. Specifically, we present a novel L-I-OSCM mapping scheme to improve the randomness of the chaotic sequences, with which the generated chaotic sequences have the property of having more complex and disordered phase space, being more sensitive to the initial value and having better randomness. Numerical analysis is performed to analyze and verify the better performance of L-I-OSCM scheme, and the property of chaotic sequences generated from different mapping patterns is compared. Since the chaotic sequences are noise-like and sensitive to the initial value, the access security is enhanced in L-I-OSCM chaos-based code division multiple access (C-CDMA) VLC system. Simulations are then provided to verify the effectiveness of the L-I-OSCM mapping C-CDMA VLC system, and the results demonstrate that both the bit error rate (BER) and the security performances are improved.

Facing the current shortage of radio frequency spectrum resources, visible light communications (VLC) technology has been proposed to be a candidate technology in the sixth generation (6G), especially in the application of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). And the propagation characteristics of VLC channel are critical for VLC system design and optimization. Furthermore, the impact of weather conditions on VLC channel cannot be ignored considering the vehicular VLC in ITS. In this paper, we experimentally investigate the impact of different weather types including fog and relative humidity (RH) on VLC in a laboratory atmospheric chamber. To simulate adverse weather conditions, we change the levels of fog density and water vapor introduced into the chamber, respectively. Then we measure the power attenuation and the bit error rate (BER) performance of VLC system under fog and RH conditions. We find that the VLC system will exhibit worse BER performance in the fog impaired channel than RH conditions. Besides, the results show that the bit errors will not happen until the attenuation reaches the threshold, i.e. attenuated by about 60% for both fog and RH conditions in our experiments. After that, the BER will deteriorate badly even up to 20%.

This paper analyzes the performance of a dual-hop hybrid radio frequency - visible light communications (VLCs) system. VLC exploits high frequencies for signal propagation for short-range and is highly susceptible to blockages. Hence, in this work, the sensitivity of the VLC toward the blockages is explored. This study examines outdoor-indoor communication for an urban scenario featuring an office environment. The VLC system is designed by considering multiple VLC access points serving the end users in the presence of human blockages. Selection combining is employed to select the access point which offers the maximum instantaneous signal-to-noise ratio at the user. To capture the outdoor scenario, path loss modeling is conducted to account for signal attenuation from outdoor to indoor spaces. The outdoor scenario is modeled using Nakagami-m fading channels while VLC is employed for the indoor scenario. System performance is assessed in closed-form expression for outage probability and the symbol error rate for binary phase shift keying and quadrature amplitude modulation. A deep learning-based approach detects the symbols by tracking dynamic changes in the channel. Simulation results corroborate the correctness of derived analytical expressions and reveal that blockages significantly impact both single and multiple LED based communication channels.

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technique is now used in most new broadband communication system, and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is also utilized within current 4^th generation (4G) of mobile telecommunication technology. With MIMO and OFDM combined, visible light communication (VLC) system’s diversity gain is increase, yet system capacity for dispersive channels is also enhanced. Moreover, with the emerging massive MIMO-OFDM VLC system, there are significant advantages than smaller systems’ such as channel hardening, further increasing of energy efficiency (EE) and spectral efficiency (SE) based on law of large number. This paper addresses one of the major technological challenges, system architecture design, which was solved by semispherical beehive structure (SBS) receiver and so that diversity gain can be identified and applied in Massive MIMO VLC system. Simulation results shows that the proposed design clearly presents a spatial diversity over conventional VLC systems.

A new precoding scheme for spectral efficient optical OFDM systems