Vehicle positioning scheme based on visible light communication using a CMOS camera.

For many years, X-ray movies have been considered a promising tool for exploring and providing insights into chemical reactions. A simultaneous multi-element X-ray movie can further clarify the behavior difference of various elements and help investigate their interactions. The present short communication illustrates how to conduct multi-element X-ray movie imaging in a synchrotron facility solely by placing a micro-pinhole in front of a visible-light complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) camera. It has been found that the CMOS camera can resolve X-ray fluorescence spectra when it is specially operated. In this work, a spatial resolution of ∼15 µm was achieved. In the X-ray movie, a movie frame acquisition time of 2 min and a spatial resolution of ∼50 µm were simultaneously achieved. It is clear that the CMOS camera can be a cost-efficient option for many researchers who wish to establish their own setup for visualizing chemical diffusion in various reactions.

A digital speckle pattern interferometer based on a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) camera is described. The temporal evolution of dynamic deformation is measured using interframe phase stepping. The flexibility of the CMOS detector is used to identify regions of interest with full-field time-averaged measurements and then to interrogate those regions with time-resolved measurements sampled at up to 70 kHz. A numerical and analytical investigation shows that the maximum surface velocity that can be reliably measured with interframe phase stepping corresponds to +/-0.3 times the surface velocity at which the interferogram is sampled at the Nyquist limit.

Visible light communication (VLC) with light emitting diodes (LEDs) is an emerging technology for 5G wireless communications. Recently, using complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor as VLC receiver is developed owing to its flexibility and low-cost. However, two illumination levels such as on-off keying (OOK) signal are used. To improve the system throughput and reduce complexity of the hardware design, in this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a multilevel modulation scheme for VLC system utilizing the overlapping of two light sources for the first time, and the two light sources are modulated by an OOK and a Manchester signal respectively. At the receiver, a CMOS camera can demodulate the Manchester and the OOK signal simultaneously. Meanwhile, a low-pass filter (LPF) is used to enhance the system performance. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed multilevel modulation scheme can achieve a net data rate of 4.32 kbit/s.

This paper proposes a novel beehive-shaped reflector for application to light-emitting diode (LED) transceivers for illumination and bi-directional visible light communication (VLC). By using a diffuse propagation model extended to line-of-sight and direct signals, the distribution of illuminance and the path loss of the transceiver are investigated to evaluate the performance of the beehive-shaped reflector. To verify bi-directional communication, a VLC-based image capture system, comprising a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor and video processor unit, is demonstrated. Real-time images captured by the CMOS camera are successfully transmitted to the monitoring system via a free-space channel at a rate of 115.2 kbps.

Visible light communication (VLC) technology based on mobile-phone camera has attracted more and more attention. Using the rolling-shutter effect of a complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) camera, the VLC system can achieve a higher data rate than CMOS camera frame rate. However, the blooming effect of the CMOS camera and light noise can cause grayscale value fluctuation, which can cause data logic not being correctly defined by a decision threshold, thereby affecting system performance. In this paper, for the first time, we propose an exponent transform (ET) algorithm to decrease grayscale value fluctuation, thus improving the VLC system performance. Compared with our previously proposed moving exponent average algorithm, the ET algorithm has advantages in computational complexity and bit error rate performance. Experimental results show that with the ET algorithm, over 50 cm (150 cm) transmission distance at a data rate of 5 Kb/s (2.5 Kb/s) can be achieved under the 7% forward error correction limit (BER = 3.8 × $10^{-3}$ ) for the mobile-phone camera based VLC system.

To develop an intraocular vision aid to provide artificial vision in severely traumatized eyes, where neuroretinal function could be preserved but irreversible anterior segment opacification resulted in blindness. The basis of an intraocular vision aid is in principle a telemetric circuit to bridge the opaque cornea and to allow for artificial light stimulation of the retina. The visual prosthesis comprises an external high-dynamic range complementary metal oxide semiconductor camera and digital signal processing unit and an intraocular miniaturized light-emitting diode array to project the image onto the retina. For in vivo testing of long-term function and biocompatibility, silicone-encapsulated active photodiodes were implanted in 13 pigmented rabbits and were followed up for up to 21 months. Lens extraction and stable fixation of the device in the ciliary sulcus were successful in all cases. For up to 21 months inductive energy transmission and wireless stimulation of the implants could be maintained. Electrophysiologic data and histology demonstrated a good tissue biocompatibility in the long-term follow-up. The results demonstrate the general feasibility and biocompatibility to implant and fixate an intraocular light-emitting diode prosthesis. Inductive energy transmission to the intraocular device and wireless light stimulation are assured in the long term but depend on meticulous water-impermeable encapsulation of the delicate microelectronic components. Clinical Relevance An intraocular vision aid compound system with a high-resolution light-emitting diode matrix might be a future treatment option to restore vision in blind eyes with severe anterior segment disorders.

A majority of luminance measurement systems are currently focused on measuring the total luminance of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). It has largely limit its application on micro-LEDs, which require capturing the microscopic surface luminance. In order to study the microscopic characteristics of micro-LED displays, in this paper we propose a practical method that can accurately measure the luminance of a whole micro-LED array and even the surface luminance distribution of any single micro-led chip on the array. The essentials of this method are a high-precision complementary metal oxide semiconductor camera and a self-made data processing algorithm. Results show that the maximum error of the luminance measurement is less than 8%, which can prove the accuracy of the method. The metrical wavelength range and the accuracy of system can be dynamically set according to the camera and microscope. Endowed with ultrahigh dynamic ranges, this system proves its competency for evaluating the spatially resolved distribution of luminance for high brightness micro-LEDs.

Visible Light Communication (VLC) has emerged as an attractive alternative to radio frequency (RF) communication, due to cost-effectiveness and being license free. It has also proved its applicability in automotive applications, as an alternative and/or a complement to the traditional RF-based communications. We investigate the suitability of VLC in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and discuss its advantages in terms of safety enhancement and improved efficiency of the ITS. In this thesis, a VLC-based Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) system in practical environments, considering both Line-of-Sight (LOS) and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) paths are presented. The thesis investigates robust communication between a Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) based VLC emitter and Photodiodes (PDs) based VLC receiver. For consideration of a V2V communication system, we consider transmitter on vehicle headlights and receivers on taillight making 2 _ 2 Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) communication link. A closed-form expression of the Channel Impulse Response (CIR) is derived and the effect of various channel parameters is analyzed. Optical-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (O-OFDM) with adaptive modulation schemes is proposed for system improvement. Its performance is evaluated in terms of Inter Symbol Interference (ISI) mitigation, and data rate improvement. Moreover, the effect of sunlight on the V2V-VLC Two denoising schemes are proposed and evaluated as a solution to combat the effect of the solar irradiance on the VLC signal. Firstly, we use a differential receiver for denoising purposes followed by k-Nearest Neighbour (kNN) based adaptive _ltering algorithm, which is a supervised Machine Learning (MLE) technique. The shadowing effect is also studied. Moreover, an application of VLC in Foglet based ITS is described. The simulation validation of the VLC-based V2V system is performed under various environmental conditions and scenarios. Obtained results emphasize the suitability of VLC technology for automobile applications,.

DC-biased optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DCO-OFDM) has been proposed in visible light communication (VLC) to overcome the limited modulation bandwidth of light emitting diode (LED). Due to the implementation of the inverse fast Fourier transform at the DCO-OFDM transmitter, DCO-OFDM suffers from its high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), which restricts its use in some VLC applications, especially where the optical power efficiency is a crucial requirement. That is because the LEDs used in VLC systems have a limited optical power-current linear range. To this end, a novel discrete Fourier transform spread-optical pulse amplitude modulation (DFTS-OPAM) signal scheme based on the single carrier-interleaved frequency division multiple access (SC-IFDMA) signal is introduced in this paper to address the high PAPR issue of OFDM. DFTS-OPAM is achieved by considering a PAM as an SC-IFDMA data symbol and duplicate the output vector of the fast Fourier transform at the SC-IFDMA transmitter side. Simulation results show that the PAPR of the proposed scheme is 7 dB lower than that of DCO-OFDM. Furthermore, this significant PAPR improvement is experimentally investigated where the practical results show that the proposed scheme can provide more 2.5 dB reduction in the average transmitted power requirement compared to DCO-OFDM and can subsequently increase the maximum achieved distance between the transmitter and the receiver up to 44%.

Chapter 19 - Low-Light-Level Cameras, Thermal Infrared Imagers

Visible light positioning (VLP) is an emerging positioning technique that utilizes indoor light sources to broadcast archer locations through visible light communication (VLC). Benefited by the densely deployed light lamps, VLP holds the promise for more accurate positioning accuracy than RF based approaches, and thus enables interesting applications such as retail navigation and shelf-level advertising in supermarkets and shopping malls. However, we observe that in existing VLP systems, receiving devices are heavily burdened in handling light flickering for VLC. In order to prevent human from being disturbed, the VLC transmitter lamps have to transmit pulses in a high rate (over 1kHz). Since the pulse rate far exceeds the cameras' sampling capability (30fps), receiver design either requires customized light sensor with cumbersome calibration on receiving signal strength [2] or processing high resolution images to leverage rolling shutter effect of the CMOS camera to decode message [1]. The heavy burden on receiving devices motivated us to try getting rid of light flickers. Since human eyes normally can not perceive changes in polarization, the idea is to modulate polarization instead of intensity for communication. In this demo, we demonstrate the VLC system in our VLP design [3] which realizes this idea. It enables lightweight VLC that is even affordable in wearables (Google Glass), without incurring hardware modification or computation off-loading. Moreover, it also makes other types of illuminating light beyond LED light (even sun light) possible to construct communication, therefore eliminates the barrier for deploying future VLC-based applications. As detailed in the full paper [3], our design was inspired by the liquid crystal display (LCD), from which we borrowed polarizer and liquid crystal. Liquid crystal has the property to change the polarization of bypassing polarized light according to the applied voltage. We use polarizer to polarize illuminating light and leverage liquid crystal to modulate bits through changing the light's polarization. The receiver can thus detect changes in polarization with a polarizing film, through which different polarizations result in different intensities. Since the SNR of such communication channel may significantly vary with the mobility of receiving device, we propose to add a dispersion filter to the transmitter. The dispersion filter can cast different frequency of lights into different polarization directions so that SNR in different receiving directions are evened. With the above techniques, VLC transmitter generates signal in low baud rate and mobile devices can perform VLC through camera directly. The communication is long in distance and lightweight enough for resource-constrained devices since the information is carried in intensity changes rather than certain image patterns in rolling shutter approaches. In this demo, we will illustrate the prototype implementation of the VLC communication system. We use incandescent lamps as illuminating light sources. The transmitter consists of a polarizing film, a liquid crystal layer, a dispersor and a control board. The receiver is demonstrated in Android smartphone with polarizing film in front of the camera.

Driven by the increase in Internet of Things (IoT) devices for smart home technologies, visible light communications (VLC) using multiple light emitting diodes (LEDs) have been attracting much attention in order to cope with depleted radio frequency spectrum. This paper presents a suboptimal LED selection algorithm for distributed multiple-input multiple-output (D-MIMO) VLC systems. When total ceiling LEDs are turned on to send information while illuminating an indoor environment, the problems of low energy efficiency and mutual interference between VLC channels arise. The proposed algorithm begins by selecting the LED associated with the largest VLC channel gain and adds the LED supporting the largest level of uncorrelation with the maximum VLC channel gain in each step. Simulation results showed that the proposed scheme achieves a capacity similar to an optimal selection algorithm with reduced computational complexity. With a larger distance between the light terminals and a shorter distance between the LEDs, better channel capacity performance of the proposed scheme can be achieved.

Pressure sensitive paint (PSP) is a novel measurement system developed to obtain surface pressure distribution on wind-tunnel testing models. The objective of the present work is to examine the feasibility of this novel surface pressure mapping technique for truly unsteady supersonic flow testing. Using a fast-responding porous PSP and a fast-framing complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) camera, we have measured unsteady flows induced in a two-dimensional Laval nozzle of a blow-down supersonic wind tunnel. The PSP used in this study was composed of a dye (bathophenanthroline ruthenium(II) complex, Ru(Ph 2-phen) and a silica-gel thin layer chromatography (TLC) plate, on which the dyes were absorbed. The PSP was illuminated by light-emitting-diode (LED) lamps. The results obtained by the present measurement system shows the starting process of supersonic wind tunnel at 5kHz frame rate.

IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Distinguished Lecturer (DL) Prof. Patrick Yue visited the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMECAS), China, on 12 October 2017. He gave an inspiring talk, "Recent Developments in Visible Light Communication-Applications and SoC Design," which drew over 70 attendees, including IMECAS faculties, graduate students, undergraduate students, and local professionals. After the presentation, many interesting questions were asked and led to a thoughtful discussion. This talk presents two advanced visible light communication (VLC) modulator system-on-chips (SoCs). The first is an IEEE 802.15.7 PHY-I standard-compliant VLC transmitter. The second is an active matrix light-emitting diode (LED) microdisplay driver SoC with embedded VLC function.

基于sCMOS相机的超分辨定位成像技术