VISIBLE LIGHT COMMUNICATION

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visible light communication

Waves for Wireless Communications

Low frequency (long wave length)

Radio wave Infrared Visible Light Ultraviolet

High frequency (short wave length)
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What is VLC ?
Visible light communication (VLC) uses rapid pulses of light to transmit information wirelessly Transmitting data through light rather than radio signals is called LI-FI Visible light communication (VLC) is a data communications medium using visible light between 400 THz (780 nm) and 800 THz (375 nm)

3/24/2012

visible light communication

History of Visible Light Communication

Photophone by Graham Bell in 1880

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visible light communication

The first experiment of Visible Light Communications was done by Graham Bell whose system was called Photophone.He loved the idea. This picture is from the website of Bell Laboratories whose experiment showed 200m distance voice communication.

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visible light communication

advantages
These systems present advantages over

traditional UHF RF-based systems from improved isolation between systems, the size and cost of receivers/transmitters, RF licensing laws and by combining space lighting and communication into the same system Relatively Cheaper Visible Light is non injurious to human health
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How it works ?
if the LED is on, you transmit a digital 1, if it's off you transmit a 0 It is possible to encode data in the light by varying the rate at which the LEDs flicker on and off to give different strings of 1s and 0s. The LED intensity is modulated so rapidly that human eyes cannot notice, so the output appears constant.

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visible light communication

Equipment needed
Here Transmitter is a high brightness LED For this ordinary Lighting systems should be replaced with high brightness LEDs Receiver is an array of photo sensors (nothing but a camera available in mobile phone)

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visible light communication

Technical description
To know in detail about VLC we need the following basics VLC link configuration VLC transmitter VLC receiver Brightness control of LEDs

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visible light communication

VLC link configuration

It is of 4 types 1.Directed LOS 2.Non-directed LOS 3.Directed non-LOS 4.Non-directed nonLOS

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VLC transmitter and receiver

Note : CDR=Clock and Data Recovery 3/24/2012 visible light communication

Wave length issues

The transmitting LED is operating at a wavelength of 380nm-480nm The photo diode operates at a wavelength of 400nm-1200nm There are many photodiodes whose bandwidths are over 200 MHz and is much wider than the VLC LED transmitter.

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visible light communication

Infrastructure
Mono-functional infrastructure Multi-functional infrastructure Road is a typical multi-functional one. Telephone network is also multifunctional. Most of infrastructures are multifunctional. Lighting is now a mono-functional infrastructure.It will become multi3/24/2012 visible light communication

Transmitting and receiving issues

Brightness control is the key issue of transmitting distance Here the Network interface module can be compared with a wireless modem The receiver should be equipped with an optical concentrator to get transmitted data accurately Clock and data recovery circuit is inserted to achieve synchronization between input and output

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Image sensor communication

Photo diode without lens is a simple and economical detection method. However, its communication distance is limited short due to background
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Brightness control of LED

AM dimming is the way of LED dimming which controls the DC forward current injected into the LED. By changing the DC forward current, the emitted luminous flux is controlled. It is very simple to implement, but it could cause a change of the chromaticity coordinates of the emitted light.

Losses during transmission

As we are using light for data transmission we may get interferences of unwanted light

To avoid these errors we need an optical concentrator

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Future applications of VLC

Light-Fidelity is a killer application of Wi-Fi ,using Li-Fi we can use our everyday LED light as a transmitter Under water data transmission is also possible with VLC

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visible light communication

Conclusions
Infrastructure is important to realize ubiquitous communications. Lighting will become a multifunctional infrastructure whose second function is visible light communication. VLC does not ruin the room design and landscape. VLC is easy for handicapper people. Image sensor communication is
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Thank you

3/24/2012

visible light communication