A Comparative Study on Drive
Circuit for LED to LED Communication
Ahmed Abd El Aziz and Rojina Mahmoud,
Photonic Research Laboratory (PRL),
Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT),
College of Engineering and Technology, Alexandria, Egypt
ahmedabdelazizyoussef@gmail.com
rojina.mahmoud56@gmail.com
Abstract—LED-LED technology shows up as a trend for
short-range wireless networks, which comes as a promising
breakthrough for the industry. However, this technology
still faces challenges. In particular, selecting the
appropriate drive circuit to fulfill both lighting and
communication functionalities simultaneously is a non-
trivial task. This paper reviews different designs for the
transmitter and receiver's drive circuit to find the most
suitable one to overcome the problems of transmission
distance and data rate.
Index Terms—Visible Light Communication, VLC, LED
Drivers, Efficiency, Illumination.
I. INTRODUCTION
The size of wireless communication cells in 5G is
recently shrinking. Optical wireless communication is
suggested to be an eye-catching and secure alternative
over radio frequency communication connections in
small cells. Visible Light Communication (VLC) is a
sub-category of wireless optical communication that
relies on visible light for data transmission in the
wavelength range of 380 nm to 720 nm [1]. VLC has
many advantages over RF telecommunications
technology. First, it has a wide unlicensed range. VLC
can also be implemented speedily and cost-effectively
and is therefore attractive in industrial and business
applications [2]. VLC is a renewable and energy-
efficient technology because it utilizes light that has
already been used for lighting and data transmission.
It mainly employs Light-Emitting Diodes (LED) as
transmitters due to their feasibility, prolonged life
span, compact size, low power consumption, and
minimum heat up. In optical wireless communication,
the same LEDs with faster response times can
effectively be used to provide high-speed data links.
Recent advances in material science and solid-state
devices have centered researchers' attention on
exploring LEDs as a possible short-range
communication detector.
In [3], researchers have studied utilizing LEDs on
both sides, i.e., transmitter and receiver, providing
transmission bit rates over 150 Mbps over a few
1
centimeters of distance using LEDs. However, there
are some weaknesses in LED-based communication
systems; for example, LEDs lack good responsivity
and power, essential for reliable communication.
Moreover, the transmission distance and data rates are
limited, so; it is suitable only for short-range
communications.
Several researchers addressed the problems
mentioned above by implementing different drive
circuits at the transmitter and receiver. The
bidirectional LED to LED communication link was
presented by Chun et al. [4], achieving 110 Mbps over
a distance of less than 1 m. In [5], the authors utilized
LED as a photodiode with a wavelength equal to or
greater than the transmitter's LED wavelength. The
LED characteristics were analyzed as a receiver with
Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) for a
flashlight of mobile phones at a very short distance
[6].
This paper aims to review current solutions for
implementing different drive circuits for the
transmitter and receiver to solve the problem of
transmission distance and data rate.
The rest of the paper is sorted out as follows.
Related work in Section II. Section III the review,
Section IV discussion. Finally, Section V concludes
the paper.
I. RELATED WORK
In [7], LED's spectral response as a photodetector
is discussed, showing satisfactory absorption
measurement performance. Authors have
experimented with LEDs providing transmission
speeds of 150 Mbps over a short distance of a few
centimeters (about 8 cm) in [8] using LEDs on both
sides, i.e., the transmitter and receiver. To enhance the
modulation bandwidth and switching efficiency, they
tested the biasing voltage iterations. Kowalczyk et al.
[9] achieved a data rate of 10 Mbps over a distance

20 cm. In [10], the authors presented an RGB-based
LED to LED communication connection. The
experiments demonstrated that Red-red and blue-
green combinations achieve good quality signals and
data rates of 40 Kbps and 20 Kbps, respectively. In
[11], the authors highlight the significance of LEDs in
the optical wireless communication system as a light-
receiving component and studied light color, energy
levels, and semiconductor material band gaps.
Responsivity-based calculated findings were in the
range of 0.002 and 0.156 A/W. The authors in [12]
discussed LED's photo detection properties and
elaborated on multi-color LEDs' sensing properties.
Spectral absorption and responsivity standards were
compared with a conventional photodiode and LED
as an optical receiver. The systems proposed in
[13] and [14] are based on costly, specially built
single-color LEDs, complicated optics, and high
processing power to achieve high data rates. Also,
they employed complex modulation techniques such
as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
(OFDM) using microcontrollers and complex coding.
Lang et al. [15] elaborated the sensing properties of
multi-color LEDs. Spectral absorption and
responsivity standards were compared with a
photodiode and LED receiver. Recently, as discussed
in [16-18], researchers adopted VLC in a wide range
of applications, including wireless body area
networks, underwater communication, and vehicular
communication. The photodiodes were used to
investigate the link performances.
II. REVIEW
The review focuses on choosing the best drive
circuit for the transmitter and receiver in the LED to
LED system to enhance the link distance and data
rates. The comparison is made between three essential
papers from my perspective in the literature because
they achieved the highest data rates and the longest
distance.
a) Visible light communication using LED as
receiver with the effect of ambient light:
In this paper, the authors proposed an indoor
wireless communication using LED at transmitter and
receiver sides [19], as shown in Fig. 1. A simplex red-
to-red LED VLC system was proposed. However,
red LED optical signal interferes with ambient light
noise. So, the authors deployed high-pass filters with
2
a cut-off frequency of 50 Hz for noise reduction. The
received signal is amplified using an inverting
amplifier. The final part of the circuit is a voltage
comparator to transform the amplified signal into a
digital data signal. The electronic circuit of red-to-red
LED VLC system circuit diagram is shown in Fig.2.
b) The Internet of LED: Indoor Visible Light
Communication Using LED as Transmitter and
Receiver:
This paper presented an experimental study on
LEDs as photodiode [20]. The link performances
were analyzed, covering an appropriate distance for
indoor optical communication. Additionally, they
found that the distance between the transmitter and
receiver increases by deploying lenses. The proposed
system block diagram is shown in Fig.3. Fig.4
displays various driver circuits that were adopted to
increase the distance and data rates of this analysis's
connection. They utilized a resistor-based driver
circuit with an open-loop voltage, suffering from low
power and covering limited transmitter and receiver
distance, as shown in Fig.4 (a). Similarly, they
utilized a simple receiver circuit, as shown in Fig. (4b)
c) Design and implementation of LED–LED indoor
visible light communication system:
This paper was done by the same authors of the
previous paper [20]. The authors modified the
transmitter and receiver's drive circuit to enhance the
system performance [21]. On the transmitter side,
they used BJT and MOSFET-based drive circuits.
The photoconductive mode-operated resistor drivers
were used on the receiver side. Fig.5 shows the
transmitter and receiver driver circuits. In Fig.5(a),
the 2N2222 Bi-polar junction transistor (BJT) was
used in the emitter follower-based LED transmitter
drive circuit. This design generates a low output
power, restricting the range of data rates and
connections. BJTs require the operation of higher
base current, can only withstand low input signal
voltages and require an extra resistor. The transistor
base drive circuit has high saturation, leading to
increased power dissipation and low data
transmission rate. Due to its low conduction
resistance, the metal-oxide- semiconductor field-
effect transistor (MOSFET) is the chosen active
device in digital communication systems and can
handle high current and low power dissipation with
low resistance.
Fig. 1 Block diagram of VLC system using LED as both transmitter and receiver [19]

Fig. 2 Circuit diagram of red-to-red LED VLC system [19]

Fig. 3 Block diagram of LED to LED link [20]

Fig. 4 (a). LED driver circuit for Transmitter (b). Driver LED circuit for Receiver [20]

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 IV. DISCUSSION
From the comparison among the drive circuits
presented in three papers tabulated in Table [1], it is
Parameter Paper 1 Paper 2 Paper 3
clear that the simplest transmitter and receiver circuits
were that in [20]. So, it can be an advantage because
Data rate 1 Kbps 519 Kbps 1Mbps
it is cost-efficient and low complexity of the system.
Moreover, they claimed that the transmission distance
is 1 m, which is the largest among the three papers. Distance 12.7 cm 1m 20 cm
However, [20] didn’t achieve the highest data rate.
The third paper achieved the highest data rate. It is
worth mentioning that the first paper considered the Frequency 1 KHz 0.1-1 KHz 1 KHz
effect of ambient light noise, so it has the lowest data
rate and transmission distance [19].
Moreover, the specifications of LEDs were Best color Red-Red Blue-Blue Red-Red
mentioned in [19] and [21] only, limiting the second pair
paper's reproduction.
Although there is an advantage in [21], they
simulated the system using MATLAB to validate the Table 1 Comparison between the important parameters
system performance in terms of received signal
strength, transceiver linearity, and transmission link V. CONCLUSION
distance with different colors of LEDs transmitter and
receiver side. The SNR values of 8 dB and 11 DB
The presented review brings light to some facts in
were obtained using BJT and MOSFET drivers,
LED-LED technology. We made a comparison
respectively, at 20 cm.
among three important papers in the literature. We
All the three papers tested six different colors on
found that the transmitter and receiver drive circuit
both sides of the transceiver to determine the best
designed in paper 2 is the simplest circuit. Also, we
performing pair. Table .1 shows the best color
have found that paper one discussed the effect of noise
combination for each system. A single led is used in
on the system and this is not discussed in the other
all the three systems. In my opinion, the array of
papers.
LEDs will improve the link performance.

Fig. 5 (a) LED drive with transistor circuit for Transmitter (b) LED driver circuit with MOSFET for Transmitter
(c) Photo-conductive mode of LED receiver [21]
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