CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Billions of visible LEDs are produced each year, and the emergence of high brightness AlGaAs and AlInGaP devices has given rise to many new markets. The Surprising growth of activity in, relatively old, LED technology has been spurred by the introduction of AlInGaP devices. Recently developed AlGaInN materials have led to the improvements in the performance of bluish-green LEDs, which have luminous efficacy peaks much higher than those for incandescent lamps. This advancement has led to the production of large-area full-color outdoors LED displays with diverse industrial applications. The novel idea of this article is to modulate light waves from visible LEDs for communication purposes. This concurrent use of visible LEDs for simultaneous signaling and communication, called iLight, leads to many new and interesting applications and is based on the idea of fast switching of LEDs and the modulation visible-light waves for free-space communications. The feasibility of such approach has been examined and hardware has been implemented with experimental results. The implementation of an optical link has been carried out using an LED trafficsignal head as a transmitter. The LED traffic light (fig 1.1 below) can be used for either audio or data transmission.

Fig 1.1 LED Traffic Light

Audio messages can be sent using the LED transmitter, and the receiver located at a distance around 20 m away can play back the messages with the speaker. Another prototype that resembles a circular speed-limit si gn with a 2-ft diameter was built. The audio signal can be received in open air over a distance of 59.3 m or 194.5 ft. For data transmission, digital data can be sent using the same LED transmitter, and the experiments were setup to send a speed limit or location ID information. The work reported in this article differs from the use of infrared (IR) radiation as a medium for short-range wireless communications. Currently, IR links and localarea networks available. IR transceivers for use as IR data links are widely available in the markets. Some systems are comprised of IR transmitters that convey speech messages to small receivers carried by persons with severe visual impairments. The Talking Signs system is one such IR remote signage system developed at the SmithKettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research center. It can provide a repeating, directionally selective voice message that originates at a sign. However, there has been very little work on the use of visible light as a communication medium. The availability of high brightness LEDs make the visible-light medium even more feasible for communications. All products with visible-LED components (like an LED traffic signal head) can be turned into an information beacon. This iLight technology has many characteristics that are different from IR. The iLight transceivers make use of the direct line-of-sight (LOS) property of visible light, which is ideal in applications for providing directional guidance to persons with visual impairments. On the other hand, IR has the property of bouncing back and forth in a confined environment. Another advantage of iLight is that the transmitter provides easy targets for LOS reception by the receiver. This is because the LEDs, being on at all times, are also indicators of the location of the transmitter. A user searching for information has only to look for lights from an iLight transmitter. Very often, the device is on currently used for illumination, display, or visual signage. Hence, there is no need to implement an additional transmitter for information broadcasting. Compared with an IR transmitter, an iLight transmitter has to be concerned with even brightness. There should be no apparent difference to a user on the visible light that emits from an iLight device. It has long been realized that visible light has the potential to be modulated and used as a communication channel with entropy.
2

The application has to make use of the directional nature of the communication medium because the receiver requires a LOS to the audio system or transmitter. The locations of the audio signal broadcasting system and the receiver are relatively stationary. Since the relative speed between the receiver and the source are much less than the speed of light, the Doppler frequency shift observed by the receiver can be safely neglected. The transmitter can broadcast with viewing angle close to 180. The frequency of an ON period followed by an OFF period to transmit information is short enough to be humanly unperceivable; so that it does not affect traffic control. This article aims to present an application of high-brightness visible LEDs for establishing optical free-space links.

1.2 TRAFFIC INFORMATION SYSTEM (USING LED TRAFFIC LIGHTS)

Vehicle Information & Communication System (VICS) is starting to become practicable. The Infrared System of VICS detects vehicles on the road by using optical beacons to control traffic and to supply real time traffic information. But it is an enormous budget because the optical beacon must be located on every lane of the road throughout the country. Under this background, the utilization of LED traffic light to transmit information has been patented. This is because LED traffic light use low power, have better efficiency and have much longer lamp life. The proposed setup of this system is shown in fig2 in which traffic light is the transmitter and receiver is fixed in front of the vehicle.

Fig 1.2 Traffic Light Of Transmitter and Receiver

1.3 SYSTEM DESCRIPTION

The system description of the Traffic Light Information system consists of transmitter section and receiver section. Since the proposed system is under research, a block diagrammatic description of both sections only, has been revealed out by researchers.

1.4 TRANSMITTER SECTION

Fig 1.3 Block diagram of Transmitter A block diagram representation of the schematic diagram of the transmitter design is shown in fig 3. The audio signal from the cassette tape or CD player has small amplitude; hence, amplification of this audio signal is necessary. The audio amplifier is used to amplify the weak audio signal and shift the average voltage level of the audio signal to an appropriate level so that the signal is within the capture range of a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). A VCO chip is used to modulate the incoming audio signal variations from the audio amplifier and generate the FM signal. The VCO has 2 output pins ( a square wave and a sine wave output). A square wave VCO is used instead of sine wave because there are only two states (on & off) for the LEDs. The carrier frequency is set at 100 kHz with a maximum frequency deviation of or 50 kHz. The switching of LEDs transmits the modulated signal. The
4

frequency of switching is high enough that the perceivable light appears to be constantly illuminated to the human eye.

1.5 RECIEVER SECTION

A block diagram schematic of the audio receiver is shown in fig 4. The photodetector is used to detect a light signal from the transmitter and convert it into an electrical signal. The limiting pre-amplifier is used to amplify the electrical signal from the photo-detector for the next stage. The data-reproducing circuit is used to reconstruct the square wave. The differentiator circuit is used to produce pulses according to the square wave. The pulse generator is used to convert the pulses from the differentiator into sharp pulses for use by the integrator and envelope detector in the next stage for demodulation of the signal. The band-pass filter is used to smooth out the distortions from the integrator and envelope detector to produce an appropriate waveform. Finally, the power amplifier is used to amplify the weak signal from the band-pass filter so that the audio signal would be comfortable for hearing.

BLOCK DIAGRAM OF AUDIO RECEIVER:

Fig 1.4 Audio Receiver Below is a more detailed description of the each stage.

Photo-Detector Circuit
The photo detector circuit consists of a photo diode and a resistor. One end of the photo diode is coupled to the current limiting resistor with the other end coupled to the ground. Since the signal from the photo-detector circuit is very small, amplification is needed for the next stage. The limiting pre-amplifier circuit consists
5

of two op-amplifiers as well as some resistors and diodes. The diodes are used to limit the input voltage level to a desired level (such as between 0.7 and 0.7 V). This

circuit aims to amplify the input voltage to a certain level, and a comparator is used to produce rectangular signal pulses. Two pre-amplifiers are used in this circuit because using one pre-amplifier will require a very high gain amplifier. Hence, two preamplifiers, each with lower gain, are used to achieve high gain with reduced noise.

Data -Reproducing Circuit

Next, a data reproducing circuit, which consists of an operational amplifier, a resistor, and two NAND Schmitt triggers, is used. Its function is to produce rectangular pulses from the amplified signal in the previous stage. An operational amplifier is used as a comparator, which uses a virtual ground as a reference. The NAND Schmitt trigger gates are used to enhance the noise immunity and to correct the edges from low to high voltage levels due to slew rate of the amplifier. Two NAND Schmitt trigger gates are used instead of one so that the signal will not be inverted. Then, a differentiator circuit consisting of a capacitor and a resistor is used to detect the leading edges of the pulse with the trailing edge blocked by the diode. Next, there is a circuit of a pulse generator. A Schmitt trigger gate is used as a pulse generator, and the output gives the inverted version of pulses from the differentiator.

Integrator & Envelope Detector

An integrator and envelope detector can be found next. The integrator is an envelope detector, and double integration is carried out. If the inverted pulses from the pulse generator contain high frequency, the frequency of integration is higher and the voltage level of output would be higher. However, if the inverted pulses contain low frequency, the frequency of integration is lower and the voltage level of output would be lower. In this way, the modulated signal would be reconstructed.

Band-Pass Filter
Next, a band-pass filter is used. The output signal from the previous stage, integrator and envelope detector has many distortions. A band-pass filter is used to filter out all the high-frequency distortions. The higher cut-off frequency depends on a capacitor and a resistor. A lower cut-off is also used to filter out the low-frequency

noise, such as the 50-Hz power line frequency. The output signal from the band-pass filter is an audio signal.

Power Amplifier
The final stage of the receiver circuit is a power amplifier, the output of which is connected to the speaker. The objective is for the delivery of the audible messages through a speaker or headphone/ear jack. In the 21th century, high speed data transmission will play an important role in our daily life. Multimedia information is envisaged to be available at any place and at any time. Wireless access networks constitute a key element to achieving these goals. However, radio frequency bandwidth at frequency ranges which allow reasonable spatial coverage is a limiting factor. Therefore, alternative wireless transmission means have to be explored. Visible light communication using white LEDs offers the Potential for such alternative. The main reasons are as follows: White LEDs are currently penetrating many areas of our everyday life. They are envisaged to replace high energy consuming light bulbs in private and business homes and even in street lamps. Moreover, they can be used in headlights of planes and trains, front and back lights in cars and trains, and for object illumination in museums,etc.. Bandwidth is not limited. Existing local power line infrastructure can potentially be utilized. Transmitters and receivers devices are cheap, and there is no need for expensive RF units. As light waves do not penetrated opaque objects, they cannot be eavesdropped. It is very difficult for an intruder to (covertly) pick up the signal from outside the room. Visible light radiations are undoubtedly free of any health concerns. Therefore, these systems will receive acceptance for use in hospitals, private homes, etc.. Furthermore, no interference with RF based systems exist, so that the use in airplanes is uncritical. Infrared signals were investigated for wireless data transmission, for example, applied to indoor wireless local area networks. The
7

wavelengths of infrared and visible light sources are close to each other, and the signals, therefore, qualitatively exhibit a similar propagation behavior. As a consequence, white LEDs have started to attract attention for use as a data communications. In addition, white LEDs can offer very high brightness, very low power consumptions and long lifetime. Therefore, a unique feature of white LEDs is that they can serve two purposes at the same time lighting and high speed wireless data transmission. In addition, unlike infrared transmission, there are no health regulations to restrict the transmit power. The optical medium can be viewed as complementary to the radio medium rather than competitive. For example, if a WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) is required to cover a large area, where users can roam freely inside and outside a building and remain connected to the network at all times, and then radio transmission is the best choice to achieve this. If, however, a WLAN is required to cover a relatively small area, and the service is provided locally inside a room, but high transmission rates are required such as for video conference, digital TV (television) or video on demand, then the optical transmission with almost unlimited bandwidth can be used. At the same time, this would free radio frequency spectrum for other purposes as described above.

CHAPTER 2 OFDM VISIBLE LIGHT WIRELESS COMMUNICATION BASED ON WHITE LEDS

2.1 INTRODUCTION TO OFDM:
OFDM is considered a strong candidate as a wireless data transmission technology in broadband cellular networks. In particular, OFDM is used in the IEEE 802.16 based worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) standard.WiMAX uses OFDM-FDMA (frequency division multiple access), also referred to as OFDMA. Furthermore, OFDM is used in DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) standards. In an OFDM system, a high data rate serial data stream is split up into a set of low rate sub-streams. The parallel data transmission offers possibilities for alleviating many of the problems encountered with serial transmission systems [10] such as inter symbol interference (ISI) and the need for complex equalizers. The total channel bandwidth is divided into a number of orthogonal frequency sub channels. Each low rate sub-stream is modulated on a separate sub channel. The orthogonality is achieved by selecting a special equidistant set of discrete carrier frequencies. It can be shown, that this operation is conveniently performed by the IFFT (inverse fast Fourier transforms). At the receiver, the FFT (fast Fourier transform) is used to demultiplex the parallel data streams. In practical systems, channel distortions introduce ISI potentially violating the orthogonality. Therefore, a guard interval (GI) with a cyclic prefix is introduced to preserve the orthogonality between sub channels. An open issue is the high PAR (peak-to-average ratio) of the OFDM signal. This is a particular problem when used for wireless transmission. Power amplifiers with a large linear range at reasonable costs are still an open issue. As a consequence, the power amplifiers have to be driven with a certain power backoff which compromises the signal coverage. OOK, PCM (pulse code modulation), PPM (pulse position modulation), and SC-BPSK (sub-carrier binary phase shift keying) are some of the more popular modulation schemes used in conjunction with LED wireless systems. The use of OFDM was first discussed.

The inherent robustness of OFDM against multipath effects, the possibility to combine it with any multiple access scheme such as TDMA (time division multiple access), FDMA and CDMA (code division multiple access), and the possibility to easily combine OFDM with any higher order modulation scheme makes it an excellent choice also for visible light communication. Moreover, the issue of high PAR in OFDM can be exploited constructively for visible light communication. Namely, the high signal variations of the time signal are utilized to intensity modulates the LEDs. The human eye would not be able to follow these variations, and, hence, the lighting will not be affected. As a consequence, simple off-the-shelf LEDs can be used to develop cheap transmitters. III. HARDWARE

ARCHITECTURE Since no well defined channel models for such transmission systems exist in literature; it was decided to evaluate the performance using an experimental setup. A. Link chain

Fig. 2.1 shows the principle block diagram of the demonstrator. The link chain consists of two DSP boards, one for the transmitter (Tx) and one for receiver (Rx). In particular, the TMS320C6000 DSP evaluation board with the Texas Instruments C6713 floating-point processor, which is based on the very long instruction word (VLIW) architecture, is used. The processor runs at 250MHz. The evaluation boards contain 32-bit stereo analogue input and output ports with a maximum sampling frequency of 96 kHz [13]. Mat lab/Simulink is used for the development of the algorithms and the code that is run on the DSP boards.
10

Visible light data transmission prototype For the purpose of demonstration, a digital image is used as the data source. The generated D/A (digital/analogue) converted OFDM signal from the sender DSP is fed to the optical transmitter circuit that drives the white LED. At the receiver, an analogue circuit with a photodiode is used to convert the optical signal to an electrical signal. The electrical signal is then passed through an A/D (analogue/digital) converter followed by cyclic prefix elimination and OFDM demodulation. These operations are preceded by a frame synchronization routine. B. LED characteristics: White LEDs are classified into two types. Some are fabricated using a blue LED chip and a phosphor. These types of LEDs have a phosphor layer on top of InGaNbases blue LED chip. The other types of white LEDs are fabricated by mixing light from LEDs of the three primary colors, such as red, green, and blue. All the three colors are emitted simultaneously. The optical source used in the prototype is a single chip (the first type as described above) 5mm white LED with a luminous intensity of 11000mcd. This type is chosen as it can be considered standard and inexpensive. The circuit employs a P (positive) on N (negative) silicon planar photodiode designed to deliver a maximum response.

Fig 2.2 Visible light OFDM transmission model Visible light OFDM transmission model through the visible part of the spectrum. The 9.8mm2 planar photodiode has a built in infrared rejection filter and provides a
11

high shunt resistance of 0.07GOhm maximum, and low dark current of 2000pA maximum. The generated photocurrent is proportional to the incident light power and it is converted to voltage using a transimpedance configuration. The photodiode can be operated with an applied reverse bias, photoconductive mode, or unbiased, photovoltaic mode. The photodiode was chosen with the previously mentioned characteristics to achieve very low offset when the photodiode is operated in the photovoltaic mode, and when it is used in a high gain transimpedance operational amplifier circuit. For our application in the low frequency range, photovoltaic mode provides reasonable linearity and low noise.

2.2 VISIBLE LIGHT SYSTEM MODEL:

The main building blocks of an OFDM-based transmitter and receiver systems are illustrated in Fig. 2. Since OFDM is based on IFFT and FFT algorithms, the implementation on the DSP is straightforward. On the OFDM Tx board, FEC coding is implemented. This is based on a rate 1/2 convolution encoder. A time interleave is applied. At the receiver, Viterbi decoding with hard decision output is used. In general a time varying, flat fading channel is assumed. It is further assumed that the channel remains constant within one OFDM frame. Since, however, no well established models for this particular propagation system exist. Some over provisioning in the system design is accepted. With this approach the above made assumptions are to be confirmed. For the purpose of channel estimation and synchronization, training sequences and pilots are used [14, 15]. Concretely, the OFDM frame as implemented in the experimental system is formed by a time synchronization signal (sinusoidal signal), four OFDM symbols for the training sequence, and 20 OFDM symbols with data sub channels carrying the modulated information (see Fig. 3). The channel transfer factors are obtained using the training sequence and averaging over the four training sequence periods for every subcarrier.

12

Fig 2.3 OFDM frame structure

Four OFDM symbols carrying a training sequence are used for channel estimation. The data symbols are transmitted in the consecutive 20 OFDM symbols. Each of these symbols uses four subcarriers for pilot transmission In addition, pilots at specific sub channels are added to correct the residual channel estimation and synchronization errors. A cyclic prefix of fixed length is added to the transmitted signal. Root raised cosine pulse shaping filters with a roll off of 0.2 are used at the transmitter and receiver. Frequency domain equalization is realized using conventional OFDM zero-forcing (ZF) detection. With the particular implementation the high PAR in OFDM is exploited to intensity modulate the white LED. Therefore, only real valued signals can be transmitted. This is accomplished by dividing the OFDM symbol in two halves. The second half carries the conjugate complex copy of the first half. As a consequence, after the IFFT operation, only real valued samples are obtained. These samples are fed into the root raised cosine pulse shaping filter and the resulting signal is then D/A converted. The exact structure of an OFDM symbol is depicted in Fig. 4. The OFDM symbols for data transmission are composed as follows (numbers in rows represent subcarrier indices): 4 pilot sub channels, 2 zero padded sub channels to eliminate power at DC and at carrier frequency, and 26 sub channels for actual data transmission. The conjugate complex of these 32 symbols (lower part) is transmitted on another 32 sub channels in order to generate a real valued signal for the intensity modulation of the LED.

13

CHAPTER 3 IMPLEMENTATION & EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

An LED traffic-signal head made up of 441 high-brightness LEDs has been implemented in the Industrial Automation Research Laboratory at The University of Hong Kong. Each LED is a Hewlett Packard high intensity AlInGaP type with a luminous intensity of 2000 mcd at 20-mA rated driving current, and the viewing angle is 30 . The specifications of the LED traffic signal head are given in table below. LED TRAFFIC SIGNAL HEAD SPECIFICATIONS: Signal color Red Construction 441 red ultra-bright LEDs with a luminous Intensity of 2000mcd @ 20mA Diameter 8 in Nominal usage 17V, 2A Nominal power consumption 8-34W Luminous intensity 300cd Viewing angle 2q1/2 (half power) 30 deg Distance for audio transmission (Outdoors) Over 20 m The radiation pattern of the LED traffic light is given in fig 5. An HP Audio Analyzer, which has low-distortion signal source with a signal analyzer, is then used for audio measurement of the visible-light LED audio broadcasting panel. The frequency response of the communication channel occupied by the audio signal was determined. Here, the frequency of the audio signal transmitted via the LEDs was varied, and the response was observed using the HP audio analyzer. The frequency response is not as flat as may be expected from the enormous bandwidth of visible light. This is due the limitations inherently governed by the VCO in the transmitter and the discriminator used at the receiver.

14

Fig 3.1 Radiation Pattern Of LED

Fig 3.2 Frequency Response Curve

Fig 3.3 Signal to Noise ratio Curve The frequency response characteristics of system are shown in fig 6. In another measurement on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the result is shown in fig 7. The same Intelligent Traffic Light has also been used for digital data transmission. Digital data can be sent using the same LED transmitter, and experiments have been set up to send digital information. A receiver, which resembles a portable traveler location system, has been implemented to obtain the demodulated signal.

15

A bit error rate (BER) experiment for the LED traffic light has been performed in fig 9. In the experiment, frames of data were transmitted continuously from a computer to the serial communication interface circuit via the printer port of the computer. The modulated signal is transmitted by the LED traffic light. The visiblelight signal was transmitted to the receiver, and the serial communication interface performs demodulation of the data. The computer at the receiver side would compare the received data with transmitted data. The number of error bits would be recorded. The data frames transmitted by the LED traffic light contained a pseudorandom series of data divided into 31 data blocks. The transmission speed of the visible light Communication channel is 128 kbps. The indoor ambient-light power was measured By an optical power meter and found to be 12 W.

Fig 3.4 Bit Error Rate

The table below shows the result of the BER test. BER EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS Power of visible-light Signal at the receiver BER 0.5W 2.1315*10^-3 0.6W 5.2177*10^-7 0.7W 2.4835*10^-7 0.8W 9.1982*10^-8 1.8W <2.2155*10^-10 It is observed that the BER decreases as the power (or luminance) transmitted by the LED traffic light increases. In other words, the brighter the traffic light, the smaller is the BER. It has been found by another experiment that BER increases with
16

the separation between traffic light and the receiver. A graph of log (BER) plotted against log (separation) is approximately linear. On light intensity L received by the receiver, there is an approximate linear relationship between log(L) and log(separation). The two above imply a linear relationship between log(BER) and log(L). In a real situation, there will be other visible-light sources nearby. One example would be the head light of a vehicle traveling in the opposite lane. Thus, the effect of a headlight was evaluated. This situation was simulated by placing a lamp with a 100W light bulb beside the LED traffic light. The BERs for the traffic light signal at 0.7 W were compared. Without the headlight, the BER is 2.4835 10E 7. With the headlight, the BER is 1.1232 10E 6. This shows the light source interference would increase the BER. The laboratory has also developed a number of prototypes to demonstrate the feasibility of the iLight technology.

17

CHAPTER 4 ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES & APPLICATIONS

As a medium for wireless short-range communication, visible light has both advantages and disadvantages when compared with IR, microwave, and radio media.

4.1 ADVANTAGES
This system has many advantages 1. On one hand, LEDs and photo detectors capable of high-speed operation are available at low cost. 2. Like the IR, the visible spectral region is unregulated worldwide and FCC licenses are not necessary, as the commission does not regulate the visible light frequencies. 3. Both IR and visible light penetrate through glasses, but not through walls. For transmission to be possible there must be no obstructions standing in the way of the visible-LED light beam as it requires a clear LOS between the sending side (LED) and the receiving side, whereas IR also allows a nondirected and non-LOS link design. 4. Like microwaves, visible-LED light beams follow a straight-line path and are well suited for the wireless delivery of large quantities of voice and data information. In practical use, one should take the advantage of this highly directional feature of LEDs. 5. High directional features of LEDs.

4.2 DISADVANTAGES
On the other hand, LEDs also have many drawbacks. 1. They are suitable for short range only, as the photo-detector current is proportional to the received power. 2. Intensity modulation with direct detection seems the only practical transmission method. 3. It should also be mentioned that the relationship between the radiant intensity and the distance from the receiver follows the inverse square law. Hence, as a communication medium, it has limited range

18

4. It is subjected to noise arising from sunlight, incandescent lighting, and fluorescent lighting. It is not suitable for broadcasting signals over a wide coverage area or over long ranges.

4.3APPLICATIONS
In traffic light In traffic information system In museum

4.3.1 IN TRAFFIC LIGHT

High-brightness LEDs are increasingly being used in traffic lights due to their low power consumption and minimal required maintenance, which can be translated into considerable cost savings each year. For example, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, is replacing all of its 28,000 red signals with LEDs, with an estimated annual cost savings of $1.2 million. The next stage of development will involve the three-color LED signals. In Singapore, there has been a complete change of traffic signals from the incandescent to LED. The $12.7 million project has replaced all 60,000 incandescent lamps in 1,600 intersections of the city. Again, power and maintenance savings, as well as safety, are cited as the reasons for the replacement. An LED traffic signal can use only 18 ultra bright LEDs and is warranted for five years. LED power consumption is only 8-12 W, compared with around 150 W used by its incandescent counterpart.

4.3.2 IN TRAFFIC INFORMATION SYSTEM

With ideas and developments described in this article, an LED traffic light can be used as an audio broadcasting device, in addition to their normal function of being an indication and signaling device. A receiver some distance away pointing at the traffic light can receive voice messages. For drivers, the message can announce the time until the next signal change. For pedestrians or people with visual impairments, the voice message can tell the location or directional information. The above development allows a concurrent use of traffic lights because it can broadcast local traffic information, location and road information to both pedestrians and road users, and simultaneously perform its normal function of being a traffic signaling-device. The LED traffic light, called Intelligent Traffic Light, becomes a new kind of short-range
19

information beacon. Essentially, all LED-based traffic signs, displays, or illumination devices can perform the above functions.

4.3.3 IN MUSEUM
Other applications can be found in a museum or exhibit-hall environment. The information on an individual exhibit can be broadcast via a plurality of LEDs, which is also used for the purpose of illumination. With the guest pointing the receiver to the relevant LEDs on a transmitter, with the head phone or ear jack attached to a portable receiver, he can listen to the audio message about the specific exhibit item he is interested. Thus, the indoor environment can remain quiet while the guests stroll in the museum. This is the major advantage over conventional broadcasting systems in that individuals with receivers have the freedom of choice to receive specific messages without hearing any unwanted announcement, music, or commercials.

20

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION
High brightness LEDs are getting more popular and are opening up a number of new applications, especially with the improved efficiency and new colors. In this article, the novel idea is based on the fast switching of LEDs and the modulation of visible light is developed into a new kind of information system. A visible-LED audio system that makes use of visual-light rays to transmit audio messages to remotely located receiver is described. Such a system made up of high-brightness visible LEDs can provide the function of open space, wireless broadcasting of audio signals. It can be used as an information beacon for short-distance radio communication. Any illumination device making using of high brightness visible LEDs can be used as a kind of short-range information beacon.. One example is an LED traffic light for the support of roadside-to-vehicle communications. There are many potential novel uses of visible light from LEDs as a communication medium. This concurrent use of LEDs for simultaneous signaling and communications will open up many new applications.

21

REFERENCES
1. H. Park and J. Barry, Modulation Analysis for Wireless Infrared Communications, in Proceedings of International Conference on

CommunicationsICC95, vol. 2, June 1995, pp. 11821186. 2. Moreira, A. Tavares, R. Valadas, and A. de Oliveira Duarte, Modulation Methods for Wireless Infrared Transmission Systems Performance Under Ambient Light Noise and Interference, in Proceedings of SPIE Conference on Wireless Data Transmission, vol. 2601, October 1995, pp. 226237. 3. J. Carruthers and J. Kahn, Multiple-Subcarrier Modulation for Nondirected Wireless Infrared Communication, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication, vol. 14, April 1996, pp. 538546. 4. M. Audeh and J. Kahn, Performance Evaluation of Baseband OOK for Wireless Indoor Infrared LANs Operation at 100 MB/s, IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 43, June 1996, pp. 20852094. 5. J. Kahn, J. Barry, M. Audeh, J. Carruthers, W. Krause, and G. Marsh,NonDirected Infrared Links for High-Capacity Wireless LANs, IEEE Personal Communication Magazine, vol. 1, 1994, pp. 1225. 6. J. Kahn and J. Barry, Wireless Infrared Communications, in Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 85, February 1997, pp. 265298.

22