Chaos Synchronization on Visible Light
Communication with Application for Secure Data
Communications
Pep Canyelles-Pericas, Andrew Burton, Hoa Le-Minh, Zabih Ghassemlooy, Krishna Busawon
Faculty of Engineering and Environment
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
josep.canyelles-pericas@northumbria.ac.uk
Abstract— This paper studies the possibility of implementing
a chaos synchronization scheme in the context of Visible Light
Communication (VLC) with potential application to message
encryption. For this, a unidirectional transmitter-receiver
configuration is employed whereby the encrypted data is sent
over a VLC optical wireless channel. More precisely, the classical
chaotic masking, with the use of a Rossler oscillator and a
corresponding nonlinear observer, and the inverse system
approach with Lorenz oscillators, have been employed to
demonstrate the proof of concept of chaos synchronization in
VLC. By employing a pseudo random binary data sequence as a
message it is shown that acceptable message recovery is obtained
despite the presence of delay, attenuation and noise in the
channel. Simulations results using Matlab Simulink are provided
to show the performance and the level of the synchronization
achieved for both methods.
Keywords— chaotic masking, inverse system approach,
message encryption, visible light communication channel, chaotic
oscillators, nonlinear observer, time delay transmission.
I. INTRODUCTION
Chaotic communications, based on the chaos theory, have
been extensively researched during the last fifteen years with
application to secure telecommunications [1, 2]. The first work
related to chaotic communications was introduced by Pecora
and Carroll in 1989 [3], followed by further studies such as [4,
5]. More precisely, the authors used the so-called chaotic
masking (or addition) method to show the prospect of chaos
synchronization in a transmitter-receiver configuration. In this
method, the message is added in the chaotic time series of the
emitter output and fed into the receiver where it is recovered
afterwards by a simple subtraction. In fact, Pecora and Carroll
[3] initially used the addition method to prove the principle,
although the work later developed to include different
methodology of embedding a message, such as inclusion
method, chaotic shift keying, chaotic parametric modulation,
inverse system approach and so on [1, 2]. The inverse system
approach method was proposed by Cuomo and Oppenheim in
1993 [5] and is an improvement of the addition method in the
sense that produced a higher quality message masking and
recovery compared to the addition method with a relatively
simple design. Chaos synchronization is still under current
study and interest; especially regarding new topologies of
chaotic mixing and the combination of the theory with
emerging communication channels, such as Visible Light
Communication (VLC).
In this paper, we study the possibility of implementing a
chaos synchronization scheme in VLC optical wireless channel
and examine its potential application to message encryption.
For this we have conducted a comparative study using the
addition method and the inverse system approach in the
presence of a VLC channel. For the addition method, the
Rossler oscillator (transmitter) with a corresponding nonlinear
observer (receiver) was applied. For the inverse system
approach both transmitter and receiver were Lorenz oscillators.
We have chosen Rossler and Lorenz chaotic oscillators because
of their relative simplicity and their possibility of being
implemented in analogue electronics at low cost. More
precisely, we have analyzed the suitability of the addition and
the inverse system method using a VLC channel and simulated
the overall system using Matlab Simulink to test their
performances. Indeed, we show that the synchronization of the
transmitter and receiver is possible using the VLC channel in
both approaches. However, the classical addition method with
nonlinear observer design presents larger sensitivity to delay.
As a consequence the quality of message recovery is limited
and further signal processing techniques are required to obtain
acceptable quality. We present results for both approaches
using an accurate VLC channel model as an essential proof of
concept. To start with, we demonstrate the message recovery at
1kbit/s of data rate for typical VLC delay time of 20
nanoseconds and with 1% of pseudo random generated noise in
the channel.
It is important to point out that both classic chaotic
masking and inverse system schemes are easily breakable [6].
However, the main objective here is to show that this scheme is
realizable on a VLC channel, as the latter is becoming a mature
alternative in wireless optical communications. As far as the
authors are aware this feasibility study has not been carried out
before.
The paper is organized as follows: In the next section, the
analysis of the VLC model used is provided. In Section III, the
synchronization of the inverse system approach scheme is
demonstrated with the presentation of obtained simulated
results. In Section IV, classic chaotic masking with nonlinear
observer is presented with message recovery results. Finally
some conclusions are given.
 II. VISIBLE LIGHT COMMUNICATION MODEL ANALYSIS ( + 1)
(0) = cos ( ) ( ) ( ) cos( ) (2)
A. Lasers and LEDs in chaotic communication 2
Optical chaotic communications based on lasers have been And for >
extensively researched the last fifteen years [7]. One of the (0) = 0 (3)
main reasons, if not the main one, of such interest lies in that
lasers can be used for long distance communications such as where ȡ is the lambertian order of the LED, A is the physical
common internet optical fiber. area of the detector, D is the distance between the transmitter
and the receiver, ‫ ׋‬and ȥ are the angles of incidence and
On the other hand, VLC is based on White Light Emitting irradiance respectively, Tsȥ is the gain of the optical filter (set
Diodes (LEDs). This type of optical wireless communication is to 1 for this simulation), and Jȥ is the gain of the optical
designed for short distance information transmission. LEDs are concentrator. The term ȌC denotes the field of view of the
much cheaper than lasers, highly energy efficient and so concentrator. The gain of the optical concentrator Jȥis given
currently substituting previous light bulb technology for by:
common lighting systems. This progressive substitution is an
advantage in order to disguise potential key information
transmission with chaos encryption over public channels. , 0 <
( ) = sin (4)
Chaos based codification could provide security for this new 0, 0
channel. Besides, LEDs present larger spectral width emission
compared to lasers, which have a very narrow spectrum of where n signifies the refractive index of the optical
emission, and are still under continuous technological concentrator. All modeling parameters are given in the
development. To complement the argument, recent following Table 1.
advancements in the field have proved high data rate Table 1
transmission in VLC using arrays of LEDs [11].
Parameter Value
VLC systems attract interest towards security applications
of encryption as the hidden message is transmitted into a Detector responsivity 0.5 A/W
shorter medium and therefore harder for eavesdroppers to Lambertian order ȡ 1
obtain a sample when compared to long distance transmission
Detector Area A 1 cm2
on fiber optics. Potentially, they could be used as a firewall if
integrated into longer optical message transmission, increasing Distance D 1m
the level of security of the proposed encryption methods. For Incidence ‫׋‬ 0o
instance, if the VLC channel was to be confined in a security
Irradiance ȥ 0o
room, it would be almost impossible to eavesdroppers to obtain
a sample of the transmitted information system to break Optical filter Tsȥ 1
message coding. Alternatively, taking advantage of the spread Field of view of the concentrator ȌC 60o
of LEDs for lighting, information could be transmitted in such
channels dissimulated in standard illumination. Refractive index n 1.5

B. Visible Light Communication modelling The values in this table are provided according to the
physical VLC channel that will serve as experimental test bed
The received signal V¶WIJ, has been modeled as the
convolution of the transmitted signal s(t) with the LED impulse
response hLED(t) and the line of sight (LOS) DC channel gain
H(0) [12, 13]:
( )= ( ) ( ) (0) + ( ) (1)
where IJ is the delay in the channel, estimated in 20
QDQRVHFRQGVȖUHSUHVHQWVWKHGHWHFWRUUHVSRQVLYLW\DQGN(t) is
additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) introduced into the
channel. For simulation purposes N(t) has been set to 1% of
the total received power after attenuation effect. The LED
impulse response hLED(t) of a Luxeon Rebel cool white LED
can be assumed to be 1 as this function behaves as a low pass
filter with a cut-off frequency of 4MHz. Since the speed of
both systems is well below this value such assumption can be
made. The DC LOS channel gain H(0) is given by [12]:
For 0 < Lorenz oscillator as shown in Fig.1. The transmitter and
for the designed models.
Substituting the values into the equations it can be
appreciated that the applied signal will be attenuated to the
order of 10e-5. In our case successful chaotic synchronization
requires the carrier to be introduced to the receiver to have a
close value to the initial emitted signal. Experimentally this can
be solved by applying accurate signal amplification, for
instance with the help of a transimpedance amplifier.
III. INVERSE SYSTEM APPROACH WITH LORENZ CHAOTIC
OSCILLATORS IN VLC
A. Method description
In this method a chaotic master transmitter, chosen here as
a Lorenz oscillator, unidirectionally drives a corresponding
receiver initial conditions are set to different values.
 initial transient lasts for 15s, it is when the message is
introduced in the system.

Fig. 2. Lorenz transmitter’s x2 time series

Fig. 1. Classic inverse system approach method via VLC channel By using the same values for ı, r and b, the receiver is
given by
The Lorenz oscillator is described by the following set of
( ) = 10( ( ) ( ))
differential equations [8]:
( ) = 28 ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (10)
1( ) = ( 2( ) 1( )) 8
(5) ( )= ( ) ( ) ( )
2 ( ) = 1( ) 2( ) 1 ) 3( )
( 3
Such a system yields an attractor similar to the emitter,
3( ) = 1( ) 2( ) 3( ) sharing the same attractor region [8] as shown in Fig. 3 (in blue
line). Unlike the methodologies detailed in [9, 10] for this
Based on Fig.1, we choose an invertible function s(t) configuration, it has not been necessary to design an observer
composed of the state variable x2(t) to which the message m(t) at the receiver side as the response of both systems
is added, that is asymptotically converge in time even when the transmitter and
receiver have initial conditions. It is well-known that the
( )= ( )+ ( ) (6) inverse system method provides perfect message recovery in an
ideal channel (without noise and delay). However, in this work,
The transmission channel naturally induces a transport we found that it also shows robustness with respect to delay
delay in the transmitted signal so that the received signal is and noise in the transmission channel. By plotting both
given by: attractors together and comparing their shapes it can be seen
( )= ( )+ ( ) (7) that the message is successfully embedded without breaking
the chaotic dynamics of both emitter and receiver (Fig. 3). In
the same manner the shape of both attractors is kept between
It is well-known that the Lorenz oscillator exhibits chaotic their predefined regions with a message embedded in their
dynamics under some specific choice of parameters. In the dynamics.
sequel, we choose the following typical values:
8 (8)
= 10, =, = 28
3
The function s(t) is fed back to the first state equation as
illustrated in Fig. 1. Consequently, by substituting these values,
we obtain
( ) = 10( ( ) ( ))
( ) = 28 ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (9)
8
( )= ( ) ( ) ( )
3

This system produces the well-known Lorenz’s classic

butterfly attractor [8]. For simulation purposes, the hidden
message is taken as a pseudo random binary on-off-keying
non-return-to-zero (NRZ) data sequence of 1 kbit/s to start.
Fig.2 shows the time series of the carrier signal, proving that
message is embedded without breaking signal dynamics. As
Fig. 3. Simulated Lorenz attractors for both transmitter -green- and
receiver -blue- with embedded message
B. Simulation results
All simulation results presented here are carried out using
Matlab Simulink. As mentioned before, the message m(t) is
composed of a pseudo random binary data with length 1000
bits (at 10 samples per bit). As a consequence of (1) a 20 ns Fig. 6 illustrates the transmitter attractor (in green line).
delay of the signal was experienced between the transmitted The above system can be written in compact form as:
and the received signal. For visual clarity, part of the data
stream sequence sent and the produced message recovery are = + ( , , ) (13)
shown in Fig. 4 showing clearly how the message recovery is T
robust despite the presence of delay and noise in the channel. where z=(z1,z2,z3) , y=z1 and

0 1 0
= 0 0 1 , ( , )= (14)
0 0
An observer for system (13) by considering the delay, W, in the
transmission channel, is given by:

( )= ( )+ ( ( ), ( ), ) + ( , ) (15)
where ( , )= ( ( ) ( )), ( ) = ( ) and
( )= ( )+ ( ) with observer gain matrix,
Fig. 4. 100ms of message recovery comparison K, being defined as:

The peaks that appear on the recovered message are due to 3

chaotic high gain synchronization effect, which is well-known = = 3 , > 1. (16)
and expected [1, 2].

The attractors of the observer and transmitter are shown in

Fig. 6.
IV. CLASSIC CHAOTIC MASKING WITH ROSSLER
OSCILLATOR AND NONLINEAR OBSERVER DESIGN

A. Method description
Successful synchronization of Rossler oscillators has been
obtained using feedback control techniques in [14]. However,
this implies using two transmission channels with opposite
directions, one for information transmission and another one
for active control feedback. In order to achieve chaotic
synchronization in VLC a nonlinear observer is designed in
the receiver side as a solution to the problem as depicted in
Fig. 5:
Fig. 6. Transmitter-green- and receiver-blue- phase state representation

Fig. 6 demonstrates that we successfully achieve chaos

synchronization by estimating a single variable without using
feedback control techniques and under the presence of delay in
the transmission channel. Besides, a message has successfully
been hidden in the chaotic dynamics of the transmitter without
breaking the established regime.

B. Simulation results
Fig. 5. Classic chaotic masking method with nonlinear observer design For the purpose of testing the designed system, we have
in VLC channel introduced the same binary data stream as with the previous
case, 1000 bits in one second of transmission. It is observed
The Rossler chaotic oscillator is given by [15]: that the chaotic dynamics of the Rossler oscillator is slower
= + than that of the Lorenz oscillator. More precisely, it takes up
= (11) to 150s (approx.) to reach chaotic regime. Initial transient is
= + ( ) long, up to 150s. Thus, the hidden message is introduced in
the system at time equal to 150s in order to make sure that it is
Here, the parameters A, B and C are chosen as: masked in chaotic dynamics. This can be appreciated in time
A=0.1, B=0.1, C=8.5 (12) series of the carrier signal, shown in Fig.7.

Fig. 7. Chaotic time series of carrier signal (0-300)s
The whole stream of masked data against recovered data is
represented in Fig.8. To improve the obtained message
recovery standard signal processing techniques can be applied.
Fig. 8. Masked message –green- against recovered message –blue-
To deal with the transient that last until 150.2s preamble
technique is suitable. This is a standard practice in Ethernet
protocol. It consists in determining first how long the transient
is and thus sending a stream of bits without information
equivalent to such transient. In Fig.8 our message would start
in second 150.2s. This is a widely used technique as in analog
circuitry capacitors have an unavoidable charging time that
produces a similar effect. To remove the offset, we calculate
mean average of both messages, and we apply an offset
summative to the recovered message. In our case, offset is
determined to 0.3 arbitrary units, which is what we add to the
recovered message. Fig.9 displays a detailed data stream
where it can be appreciated that message recovery is improved
by applying these simple signal processing techniques.
Fig. 9. Masked message –green- against recovered message –blue- with
signal processing improvement, detailed view of last 0.1275s
Despite the delay and noise in the transmission channel the
designed nonlinear observer is still capable to follow message
recovery. However, signal processing techniques to improve
quality are required.
V. CONCLUSION
In this work we have developed chaotic synchronization
schemes based on classic chaotic masking and inverse system
approach in Visible Light Communication channel that provide
(i) secure communications and (ii) successful message
recovery even with the presence of delay, attenuation and noise
in the transmission channel. The inclusion of delay in inverse
system approach seems that it had not been attempted before.
It is shown, via simulation, that better message recovery is
obtained for the inverse system approach with Lorenz chaotic
oscillators compared to the chaotic masking with Rossler
oscillator. Further works regarding experimental proof of
results in real VLC channel with analog electronic circuits are
currently being investigated.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank Northumbria University for
financially supporting this research.
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