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Electronics
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New Technologies in Visible Light Communications
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New Technologies in Visible Light Communications

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Microwave and Wireless Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 14609

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Muhammad Ijaz

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Engineering, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M15 6BH, UK
Interests: free space optical (FSO) communications; channel modeling; hybrid RF/FSO communications; LiFi and FSO for 5G networks; digital signal processing; modulation schemes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Tariq Sajjad

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Engineering, London South Bank University, London SE1 0AA, UK
Interests: visible light communication; LiFi; color converters; optical antennas; light-emitting diodes (LEDs); photodetectors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Chen Chen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Microelectronics and Communication Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Interests: visible light communication and positioning; advanced modulation; multiple access and multiplexing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Manav Bhatnagar

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India
Interests: visible light communication; LiFi; Internet of Things; digital signal processing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Optical wireless communication (OWC) that includes visible light communication (VLC) or light-fidelity (LiFi) and free space optical (FSO) communication has attracted a tremendous amount of attention in a number of applications, such as smart industry, smart cities, smart transport, smart connected buildings/homes, and autonomous vehicles. LiFi and FSO communication are envisioned to implement and support 5G wireless networks. However, there are several main research challenges within these communication technologies, including the need to achieve high data rates in real life applications, ubiquitous connectivity, shadowing and co-channel interference effects, dimming capabilities, machine-to-machine connectivity, the need to improve optical front ends including color converters and different noise factors such as turbulence and fog and cost of systems, etc. In this Special Issue, we accept original research and review articles on new technologies in optical wireless communications, including but not limited to the following topics:

  • Visible light communication (VLC)/LiFi;
  • Advanced modulation schemes;
  • Optical channel modeling and noise mitigation techniques;
  • Vehicle-to-vehicle communication;
  • Localization and positioning;
  • Spatial diversity/optical MIMO;
  • Optical satellite communication;
  • Optical wireless communication for smart cities and medical applications;
  • Machine-to-machine communication;
  • VLC-based IoT;
  • Hybrid RF/FSO links;
  • Organic optoelectronics devices;
  • New materials for color converters.

Dr. Muhammad Ijaz
Dr. Tariq Sajjad
Dr. Chen Chen
Prof. Dr. Manav Bhatnagar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • visible light communication (VLC)/LiFi
  • free space optics (FSO)
  • visible light positioning (VLP)
  • vehicle-to-vehicle VLC
  • VLP and RFID localization
  • organic optical devices
  • color converters

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

Jump to: Review

18 pages, 7091 KiB  
Article
FPGA-Based Pulse Compressor for Ultra Low Latency Visible Light Communications
by Stefano Ricci, Stefano Caputo and Lorenzo Mucchi
Electronics 2023, 12(2), 364; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12020364 - 10 Jan 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1603
Abstract
Visible Light Communication (VLC) represents an emerging technology where a short-range data connection is obtained by modulating the energy radiated by Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) at frequencies from a few kHz up to hundreds of MHz. The bandwidth/distance performance of such links is [...] Read more.
Visible Light Communication (VLC) represents an emerging technology where a short-range data connection is obtained by modulating the energy radiated by Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) at frequencies from a few kHz up to hundreds of MHz. The bandwidth/distance performance of such links is a compromise related to the available Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR). At present, VLC links with bandwidth beyond the Gb/s and distance limited to a few cm or distances up to 100 m but data rates of a few kb/s have been demonstrated. Chirp coding with pulse compression is a well-known technique capable of recovering useful data from low SNR signals, widely employed, for example, in radar. In spite of the possible advantages, its application in VLC has never been investigated. Unfortunately, the pulse compressor is quite calculation-intensive, and only devices like Field-Programmable-Gate-Arrays (FPGAs) can support a low-latency real-time implementation. In this paper we demonstrate a real-time VLC link based on chirp coding and pulse compression coded in FPGA. For example, a chirp with bandwidth and length of 1.7 MHz and 17.92 µs, respectively, is demonstrated to support a link at 1.56 Mb/s over 2.8 m distance and a latency below 40 µs. Moreover, the communication-distance increase achievable by chirps of increasing temporal length is demonstrated and compared to the theoretical background. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Technologies in Visible Light Communications)
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12 pages, 5291 KiB  
Article
Temperature–Magnetic Field Dual-Parameter Sensor Based on Circular Lattice Photonic Crystal Fiber
by Daobin Wang, Quansheng Huang, Jiahuan Yang and Lihua Yuan
Electronics 2022, 11(20), 3353; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11203353 - 17 Oct 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1322
Abstract
This paper proposed and investigated a sensor that could simultaneously measure temperature and magnetic fields. The key component of this sensor was a photonic crystal fiber with a length of only 1 cm, whose air holes were arranged in a circular lattice symmetry. [...] Read more.
This paper proposed and investigated a sensor that could simultaneously measure temperature and magnetic fields. The key component of this sensor was a photonic crystal fiber with a length of only 1 cm, whose air holes were arranged in a circular lattice symmetry. In order to increase the birefringence of the fiber, we introduced well-designed point defects into the photonic lattice. The deficient pores were filled with a magneto-fluidic material (MF) that sensed temperature and magnetic fields through changes in its refractive index. The outer layer of the fiber cladding was coated with a thin film of Indium tin oxide (ITO), which was in direct contact with ethanol. The surface plasmon resonance created by ITO was used to achieve dual-parameter demodulation and solve the cross-sensitivity problem. The photonic crystal fiber and other optical components made up a Sagnac interferometer, which was used to measure the transmission spectrum of the Sagnac interference. At the same time, the loss spectrum due to the surface plasmon resonance was measured. The variation in temperature and magnetic field was directly related to the shift in the resonance wavelengths of the transmission and loss spectra, thus enabling simultaneous dual-parameter measurements. We investigated the sensing performance of the sensor numerically. The results showed a wavelength sensitivity of 7.6 nm/°C and 0.75 nm/mT, with a resolution of 1.316 × 10−3 °C and 1.333 × 10−3 mT for temperature and magnetic field, respectively. Compared with other sensors, the key component of the proposed sensor is only 1 cm in length, which makes it compact and easy to manufacture. The geometric parameters, such as the position and radius of the pores, are less likely to deviate from the ideal values, which helps to reduce the impact of manufacturing tolerances on the sensing performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Technologies in Visible Light Communications)
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14 pages, 8980 KiB  
Article
Gate-Width Optimisation Based on Time-Gated Single Photon Avalanche Diode Receiver for Optical Wireless Communications
by Yu Mu, Xiaoxiao Du, Chao Wang, Ziwei Ye and Yijun Zhu
Electronics 2022, 11(14), 2218; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11142218 - 15 Jul 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1167
Abstract
Using a single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) as a receiver in an optical wireless communications (OWC) system can effectively expand the transmission distance. However, the performance of the SPAD receiver is usually affected with the bit error rate (BER) lower bound determined by [...] Read more.
Using a single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) as a receiver in an optical wireless communications (OWC) system can effectively expand the transmission distance. However, the performance of the SPAD receiver is usually affected with the bit error rate (BER) lower bound determined by background light and the inter-symbol interference (ISI) distortion caused by dead time. In this paper, external time-gated technology is employed, and the SPAD is only activated within the set gate-ON time to alleviate the influence of background light and ISI distortion. The SPAD photon counting model and the communication BER model are established according to the external time-gated characteristics. Considering the functional relationship among the gate-ON time, signal light flux, background light flux and blocking time, we take the minimum BER as the optimization target, the optimal gate-ON time is derived. The numerical results show that whenever the signal light flux or the background light flux is higher, the BER performance of the time-gated mode is apparently better than the free-running mode. For example, when signal photons and background photons are 30 and 10 per symbol time, respectively, the BER of free-running SPAD converges to 0.1, while the BER of the time-gated scheme is about 10−6. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Technologies in Visible Light Communications)
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17 pages, 2994 KiB  
Article
Visible-Light CDMA Communications Using Inverted Spread Sequences
by Tomoko K. Matsushima, Shoichiro Yamasaki, Kyohei Ono and Hirokazu Tanaka
Electronics 2022, 11(12), 1823; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11121823 - 08 Jun 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1197
Abstract
Visible-light communication (VLC) using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) is gaining attention in the wireless communication field. LEDs can be used as data transmitters without losing their main functionality as lighting devices. In some VLC applications, such as traffic signs and road signals in intelligent [...] Read more.
Visible-light communication (VLC) using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) is gaining attention in the wireless communication field. LEDs can be used as data transmitters without losing their main functionality as lighting devices. In some VLC applications, such as traffic signs and road signals in intelligent transportation systems, high brightness is required to help people recognize the signs and signals conveyed by the light sources. In this paper, the use of inverted modified prime sequence codes (MPSCs) is shown to be efficient for increasing brightness in an optical code-division multiple access (CDMA) system for VLC, while the original MPSCs, namely non-inverted codes, provide much lower brightness. The average light intensity of a system using an inverted MPSC is several times the intensity of a system using an original MPSC, without losing the capabilities of channel multiplexing and multi-user interference canceling. Average light intensity and normalized fluctuation are investigated for the optical CDMA systems with the original and inverted MPSCs. The results show that the systems with the inverted MPSCs provide higher average light intensity and lower normalized fluctuation than the systems with the original MPSCs do. Moreover, the bit error rates of the systems with the inverted MPSCs are evaluated by computer simulation and compared with those of the systems with the original MPSCs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Technologies in Visible Light Communications)
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Review

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97 pages, 16212 KiB  
Review
A Review–Unguided Optical Communications: Developments, Technology Evolution, and Challenges
by A. Arockia Bazil Raj, Prabu Krishnan, Ucuk Darusalam, Georges Kaddoum, Zabih Ghassemlooy, Mojtaba Mansour Abadi, Arun K. Majumdar and Muhammad Ijaz
Electronics 2023, 12(8), 1922; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12081922 - 19 Apr 2023
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 6967
Abstract
This review paper discusses the complete evolution of free-space optical (FSO) communication, also known as unguided optical communication (UOC) technologies, all the way back to ancient man’s fire to today’s machine-learning-supported UOC systems. The principles, significance, and developments that have happened over the [...] Read more.
This review paper discusses the complete evolution of free-space optical (FSO) communication, also known as unguided optical communication (UOC) technologies, all the way back to ancient man’s fire to today’s machine-learning-supported UOC systems. The principles, significance, and developments that have happened over the past several decades, as well as installation methodologies, technological limitations, and today’s challenges of UOCs are presented. All the subsets of UOC: FSO communication, underwater optical wireless communication (UOWC), and visible light communication (VLC), with their technology/system developments, potential applications, and limitations are reviewed. The state-of-the-art developments/achievements in (i) FSO channel effects and their mitigation techniques; (ii) radio-over-FSO techniques; (iii) wavelength division multiplexing and sub-carrier multiplexing techniques; (iv) FSO for worldwide interoperability for microwave access applications; (v) space optical satellite communication (SOSC); (vi) UWOC; (vii) photoacoustic communication (PAC); (viii) light-fidelity; (ix) VLC; (x) vehicular VLC (V2LC); and (xi) optical camera communication are reviewed. In addition, the current developments on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (to improve the performance of UOC systems), energy harvesting (for the effective utilization of UOC channels), and near-future communication network scenarios (mandatory for secured broadband digital links) are covered. Finally, in brief, to achieve the full potential of UOC systems, challenges that require immediate research attention are summarized. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Technologies in Visible Light Communications)
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