CURRENT CHALLENGES OF VLC USAGE IN

VEHICLE APPLICATIONS

Guided by submitted by
Athira Thulaseedharan Anjali S
Assistant Professor,RIET Roll no:4
S7,ECE
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CONTENTS

1.Introduction
2.VLC
3.VLC usage in vehicular application.
4.Current challenges regarding VLC usage.
5.Conclusion.
6.Reference

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Introduction
● In recent years ,the modern society shows n increasing interest towards wireless
communication technologies.
● Due to limited BW,current n/w not able to satisfy traffic demand.
● VLC offers 1000 times greater BW compared to RF.
● VLC in vehicular communication –to increase safety &efficiency of road
transportation.
● Due to some challenges it is difficult to implement.
● Here addresses the challenges imposed by the usage of vlc in automotive
application .

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What is VLC?

● It is a data communication variant which uses visible light b/w 400-

800THz
● Subset of optical wireless communication technologies.
● Uses fluorescent lamps to transmit signals at 10kbit/s ,LEDs for up to
500Mbit/s.
● Safe for human health.

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General Architecture of VLC system

Basic architecture of vlc system. a) transmitter .b)receiver

Source:IEEE journal

•Transmitter –modulates the light. Receiver-extract data signal from modulated

light beam
•LoS is mandatory.

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VLC emitter:
•Transforms information into messages that can be transmitted over FSO medium.

•Data transmission doesn’t affect lighting and signaling function.

•Central component is encoder-convert binary data to modulated light beam.

•Cost effective solution for encoder-usage of microcontroller(good performance).

•For complex application, mc is substituted by FPGA.

Emitter parameter-limited to characteristics of LEDs.

Data rate-switching ability of LEDs.
Emitter service area-transmission power and on illumination pattern.

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VLC receiver:
•Transforms light to electrical signal.
•Depends on performance of decoder-FPGA or mc.
•In most application,VLC rxr performance have greatest influence
on performance of VLC
system; determining communication range.
•2 types
1.photodiode based rxr.
based on photosensitive elements.(high BW,high speed
communication.)
2.camera based VLC rxr.
equipped with cameras, image sensors etc.

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VLC Usage In Vehicular Applications.
• Combining V2V and I2V,81% of all vehicle crashes could be prevented.

• VLC technologies has the potential to enhance the performance of vehicular networks
,as it is not affected by broadcasting storm phenomenon.

• ITS aims to improve to efficiency of transportation system-reduces CO2 emission.

• ITS provide real time access to relevant traffic information-collects data, analyzes and
distributes it –to increase vehicle awareness.

• Major challenge of ITS-maintain implementation cost without affecting reliability

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Advantages of VLC Usage In Vehicular Application
● Usage of LEDs.
Highly reliable, energy efficient
Can replace halogen lamps by LED lighting system.
● LED based traffic lights-low maintenance cost, long life, low energy consumption,
better visibility.
● Road illumination-provide communication support.
constant short distance btw street light &vehicle along with high data rate &enable
high data rate –increases communication stability.
● VLC technologies + ITS-----gather data from widespread area.

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Current Challenges Regarding VLC Usage
1.Increasing the robustness to noise.
● Strongest problem for outdoor vlc is triggered by the numerous source of parasitic
light
● Vehicular vlc channel is extremely noisy-affected by various types of light
● All the light sources (incandescent lamp, fluorescent lamp ,etc.)-important source of
degradation in optical wireless channel.
● Standard specifies the usage o optical clocks of 200khz for OOK and 400khz for
VPPM.
● Sunlight –most powerful source of noise.
● Background light power fluctuates 20db in 1 day- unmodulated parasitic light incident
on photodiode detector-introduce strong dc component-generate current produce shot
noise component
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Cont…
•VLC can also be affected by fog,raindrops.

-affect light passage through combination of absorption, scattering.

↑channel unpredictability.
•Automotive VLC application-long distance communication
-affected by distance dependent path loss.
-SNR ↓

Effective solution:

•Sunlight-strongest source of noise for outdoor VLC system.

•Power of received noise strictly dependent of the receiver FOV.
•Solution----- narrowing FOV.

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Cont…
•Optical collecting system englobes optical concentrator.

•Focuses the incoming light on photosensitive element

•Additional gain which concentrator provides ,

•Focal length with FOV±10º,communication distance up to 50m achieved.---BER maintained

lower than 10^-7
•Enhances SNR.
•2nd solution: VLC receivers containing 2 front ends ,each of them equipped with a narrowband
optical fiber(40nm).front ends connected to selective combing circuit—select signal to use
based on highest SNR,↓BER.

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2.Increasing the Communication Range
● As long distance communication involve ↓ power signal at receiver side---↓SNR.
● Safety and efficiency of transportation system can ↑by using wireless
communication—enable real time data exchange btw vehicles and traffic
infrastructure.
● DSRC uses 5.9GHz spectral region –aims to enable communication distance up to
1000m.
● In RF based application ,long distance communication involve long distance
interference.
● Existing VLC prototype achieve low error communication distance(100nm) in camera
based system—in photodiode system(40-60nm).
So communication needs to be further enhanced.

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The high priority safety applications.
Source:IEEE journal

Inter-Vehicle distance in different traffic

conditions
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Source :IEEE journal
Cont…
•For enhance communication range, optimized patterns and LED placement
within LED light
source is used.
•VLC emitter— Lambertian emitter.
•Radiation intensity distribution,

Irradiation pattern of VLC emitter,

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Cont…
•Vehicular communication –highly dynamic application, emitter-receiver distance
rapidly
change.
•↑gain lead to photodiode saturation.

Solution:
•Using Automatic Gain Control(AGC) circuit.
•AGC circuit can be replaced by limiting amplifier—enable variable
communication distance.

Another technique:
•High priority event driven msg is by using multi-hop transmission.

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3.Enhancing mobility
● To improve SNR, effect of background noise ↓ by narrowing receiver FOV.
● VLC require direct LOS btw emitter and receiver, the narrow sgl reception angle
reduces the mobility.

Solution:
● Integration tracking mechanism based on low cost camera with active control
position.
● Use more photo detectors oriented for different reception angle.
● For V2V communication, transceivers aligned on vertical axis, receivers have wide
FOV on horizontal axis.
● For I2V communication,FOV is narrow for vertical axis, wide for horizontal axis.

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4.Distance Measurement &Visible light Positioning.
● GPS-common tool for location determination.
● Poor performance—due to link blockage& multipath— unfeasible in urban
canyons.
● Cost is high.
● Performance of 24-79GHz operating radars might be affected severe
interferences as the no of equipped vehicles increases.
● In addition to lighting and communication, VLC –used to provide cost
effective, low complexity, high accuracy positioning.

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Cont…
➢Using vlc ,outdoor positioning is more challenging.
Solution:
➢Using headlights and tail lights—distance btw two moving vehicles can be
determined.
➢Similar to GPS ,TDOA btw 2 signals received from two different satellites
with known position.

Inter-vehicle distance measurement

Source:IEEE journal
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➢Position accuracy depends on frequency of the signal

δDmin: distance measurement resolution.

δψmin: phase measurement resolution.

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5.Increasing Data Rate
● In outdoor application—data rates are significantly lower.

● In photodiode based VLC system– data rate lower than 100kbps.

● In camera based VLC system—data rate can go up to 55mbps.

● Distance ↑ data rate ↓significantly.

● Higher data rate –achieved by camera based VLC receiver with the help of
MIMO technique.

● For further increase in data rate ,complex modulation and coding techniques are
used.

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6.Developing Parallel Visible Light Communication
● Developing MIMO VLC application-↑data rate by transmitting the info on
parallel channels.
● Using MIMO techniques, high priority data can be transmitted in parallel to
low priority data –to ensure proper reception.

● In outdoor application,MIMO VLC links are more complex to design.

● MIMO requires careful alignment btw emitter and receiver.

● MIMO vlc usage in photodiode based vehicular application is unfeasible—

BW efficient line coding technique used –reduce the interference btw
adjacent channel.

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Cont…
•Camera based system –not alignment sensitive—facilitating their usage in
mobile MIMO VLC application.

•Transmission is made parallel with less important data ,for which

communication distance shorter & BER↑, increases reliability.

•Usage of MIMO technique—not motivated by data rate increase, but by

reliability it brings to high priority data

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Conclusion
● Vehicular vlc has high potential and numerous advantage but existing
VLC prototype are not capable to fully comply wit the requirements
imposed by road safety application.
● As the outdoor VLC channel is subjected to multiple sources of parasitic
light ,the ability to cope with them is crucial for the future development
of technology
● Overall vehicular communication performances could be improved by
using VLC technologies
● This development significantly increases the reliability of vehicular
networks.

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References

● A. T. Hussein, M. T. Alresheedi, and J. M. H. Elmirghani,

“20 Gb/smobile indoor visible light communication system employing beam steering and computer
generated holograms,” ,IEEE journal on.,vol. 33,, Dec. 15, 2015.
● G. Pang, T. Kwan, C.-H. Chan, and H. Liu, “LED traffic light as a communication,” IEEE journal ,
Oct. 1999.
● D. C. O’Brien, “Visible light communications: Challenges and potential,”IEEE journal, USA, 2011.
● T. Yamazato et al., “Image-sensor-based visible light communication for automotive applications,”
IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 52, no. 7, Jul. 2014.

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