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State-of-the-Art Indoor and Outdoor Visible Light Communications (VLC) Applications and Systems

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2021) | Viewed by 16573

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, Universitatea Stefan cel Mare din Suceava, Suceava, Romania
Interests: visible light communications; vehicle safety; intelligent vehicles; inter-vehicle communication systems; wireless sensors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Co-Guest Editor
Universitatea Stefan cel Mare din Suceava, Suceava, Romania
Interests: visible light communications; noise driven phenomena in optoelectronics and nanoelectronics; hysteretic systems; stochastic analysis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the context of increasing demand for wireless communication technologies in almost every domain, corroborated with a widespread distribution of light emitting diode (LED) sources, the usage of visible light communications (VLC) appears to be a straightforward solution, providing numerous technological and financial benefits. In indoor applications, VLC technology seems suitable for providing multi-user support, unprecedented data rates, and high precision localization services, whereas numerous other applications are still emerging. In outdoor environments, VLC technology is considered suitable for inter-vehicle communications (I2V, V2V, and V2X), inter-vehicle distance determination or vehicle localization services. In addition, other services and applications are constantly being identified, from underwater communications to hybrid VLC applications.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to gather the state-of-the-art advances in the VLC area. This Special Issues focuses on the indoor usage of VLC technology in cases requiring high data rates VLC systems and applications, multi-user VLC systems, user-centered VLC services and applications, VLC localization services, emerging VLC applications, and so on. Based on LED sources being widely integrated in transportation systems, papers focusing on the usage of VLC technology in automotive applications are welcome. So, we encourage authors to submit original research, developments, experimental works, and new potential VLC applications. Review papers are welcome as well.

Dr. Alin-Mihai Cailean
Dr. Mihai Dimian
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • Indoor VLC applications
  • High data rate VLC systems
  • Advanced VLC systems and architectures
  • Advanced and emergent VLC applications
  • New trends and concepts in VLC systems development
  • Visible light communications in the 5G and 6G paradigm
  • Hybrid communications using VLC
  • Outdoor VLC applications
  • Noise mitigation techniques in VLC
  • Automotive VLC applications and systems
  • Infrastructure-to-vehicle (I2V), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications
  • Vehicle navigation and localization based on VLC systems
  • Advanced driver assistance systems using VLC
  • VLC-based cooperative driving
  • In-vehicle driver assisting systems based on VLC
  • Visible light based ranging and distance determination
  • Visible light localization
  • VLC vulnerabilities, challenges and perspectives
  • User centric VLC applications
  • Software-defined VLC
  • VLC standardization and market perspectives
  • Lighting and diming effects on VLC
  • Optical channel modeling, analysis and characterization
  • User mobility in VLC applications
  • Industrial VLC applications
  • VLC in the Internet of Things (IoT) context
  • Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) VLC applications

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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41 pages, 3906 KiB  
Article
Lights and Shadows: A Comprehensive Survey on Cooperative and Precoding Schemes to Overcome LOS Blockage and Interference in Indoor VLC
by Máximo Morales Céspedes, Borja Genovés Guzmán and Víctor P. Gil Jiménez
Sensors 2021, 21(3), 861; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21030861 - 28 Jan 2021
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 3987
Abstract
Visible light communications (VLC) have received significant attention as a way of moving part of the saturated indoor wireless traffic to the wide and unregulated visible optical spectrum. Nowadays, VLC are considered as a suitable technology, for several applications such as high-rate data [...] Read more.
Visible light communications (VLC) have received significant attention as a way of moving part of the saturated indoor wireless traffic to the wide and unregulated visible optical spectrum. Nowadays, VLC are considered as a suitable technology, for several applications such as high-rate data transmission, supporting internet of things communications or positioning. The signal processing originally derived from radio-frequency (RF) systems such as cooperative or precoding schemes can be applied to VLC. However, its implementation is not straightforward. Furthermore, unlike RF transmission, VLC present a predominant line-of-sight link, although a weak non-LoS component may appear due to the reflection of the light on walls, floor, ceiling and nearby objects. Blocking effects may compromise the performance of the aforementioned transmission schemes. There exist several surveys in the literature focused on VLC and its applications, but the management of the shadowing and interference in VLC requires a comprehensive study. To fill this gap, this work introduces the implementation of cooperative and precoding schemes to VLC, while remarking their benefits and drawbacks for overcoming the shadowing effects. After that, the combination of both cooperative and precoding schemes is analyzed as a way of providing resilient VLC networks. Finally, we propose several open issues that the cooperative and precoding schemes must face in order to provide satisfactory VLC performance in indoor scenarios. Full article
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23 pages, 1962 KiB  
Article
MAC/PHY Comprehensive Visible Light Communication Networks Simulation
by Edmundo Torres-Zapata, Victor Guerra, Jose Rabadan, Martin Luna-Rivera and Rafael Perez-Jimenez
Sensors 2020, 20(21), 6014; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20216014 - 23 Oct 2020
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3091
Abstract
In this paper, the effect of channel conditions on the global behavior of a wireless Visible Light Communications (VLC) optical network are studied. It presents a system-level simulator that considers jointly a channel propagation model and the MAC mechanisms to have a realistic [...] Read more.
In this paper, the effect of channel conditions on the global behavior of a wireless Visible Light Communications (VLC) optical network are studied. It presents a system-level simulator that considers jointly a channel propagation model and the MAC mechanisms to have a realistic description of the network, even in situations where the emitted signal is heavily affected by reflections in any close surface or obstacle. The resulting platform also accurately evaluates both Line-Of-Sight (LOS) and Non-LOS (NLOS) contributions on each node and enables the effective use of Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) schemes as defined by IEEE 802.15.7r1 standard, as well as allows a correct evaluation of lifelike problems such as the effect of hidden nodes. This work shows the necessity of accurately modeling VLC MAC layer performances, taking also into account the physical nature of visible light propagation in indoor scenarios. Full article
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24 pages, 4632 KiB  
Article
Design and Intensive Experimental Evaluation of an Enhanced Visible Light Communication System for Automotive Applications
by Sebastian-Andrei Avătămăniței, Alin-Mihai Căilean, Adrian Done, Mihai Dimian, Valentin Popa and Marius Prelipceanu
Sensors 2020, 20(11), 3190; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20113190 - 4 Jun 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3637
Abstract
As the interest toward communication-based vehicle safety applications is increasing, the development of secure wireless communication techniques has become an important research area. In this context, the article addresses issues that are related to the use of the visible light communication (VLC) technology [...] Read more.
As the interest toward communication-based vehicle safety applications is increasing, the development of secure wireless communication techniques has become an important research area. In this context, the article addresses issues that are related to the use of the visible light communication (VLC) technology in vehicular applications. Thus, it provides an extensive presentation concerning the main challenges and issues that are associated to vehicular VLC applications and of some of the existing VLC solutions. Moreover, the article presents the aspects related to the design and intensive experimental evaluation of a new automotive VLC system. The experimental evaluation performed in indoor and outdoor conditions shows that the proposed system can achieve communication distances up to 50 m and bit error ratio (BER) lower than 10−6, while being exposed to optical and weather perturbations. This article provides important evidence concerning the snowfall effect on middle to long range outdoor VLC, as the proposed VLC system was also evaluated in snowfall conditions. Accordingly, the experimental evaluation showed that snowfall and heavy gust could increase bit error rate by up to 10,000 times. Even so, this article provides encouraging evidence that VLC systems will soon be able to reliably support V2X communications. Full article
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Other

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13 pages, 1713 KiB  
Letter
Feasibility of Laser Communication Beacon Light Compressed Sensing
by Zhen Wang, Shijie Gao and Lei Sheng
Sensors 2020, 20(24), 7257; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20247257 - 18 Dec 2020
Viewed by 2150
Abstract
The Compressed Sensing (CS) camera can compress images in real time without consuming computing resources. Applying CS theory in the Laser Communication (LC) system can minimize the assumed transmission bandwidth (normally from a satellite to a ground station) and minimize the storage costs [...] Read more.
The Compressed Sensing (CS) camera can compress images in real time without consuming computing resources. Applying CS theory in the Laser Communication (LC) system can minimize the assumed transmission bandwidth (normally from a satellite to a ground station) and minimize the storage costs of beacon light-spot images; this can save more than ten times the typical bandwidth or storage space. However, the CS compressive process affects the light-spot tracking and key parameters in the images. In this study, we quantitatively explored the feasibility of the CS technique to capture light-spots in LC systems. We redesigned the measurement matrix to adapt to the requirement of light-tracking. We established a succinct structured deep network, the Compressed Sensing Denoising Center Net (CSD-Center Net) for denoising tracking computation from compressed image information. A series of simulations was made to test the performance of information preservation in beacon light spot image storage. With the consideration of CS ratio and application scenarios, coupled with CSD-Center Net and standard centroid, CS can achieve the tracking function well. The information preserved in compressed information correlates with the CS ratio; higher CS ratio can preserve more details. In fact, when the data rate is up than 10%, the accuracy could meet the requirements what we need in most application scenarios. Full article
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13 pages, 2614 KiB  
Letter
Cooperative Full-Duplex V2V-VLC in Rectilinear and Curved Roadway Scenarios
by Diego J. Cuba-Zúñiga, Samuel B. Mafra and J. Ricardo Mejía-Salazar
Sensors 2020, 20(13), 3734; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20133734 - 3 Jul 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2839
Abstract
We study here the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) visible light communication (VLC) between two cars moving along different roadway scenarios: (i) a multiple-lane rectilinear roadway and (ii) a multiple-lane curvilinear roadway. Special emphasis was given to the implementation of full-duplex (FD) cooperative communication protocols to [...] Read more.
We study here the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) visible light communication (VLC) between two cars moving along different roadway scenarios: (i) a multiple-lane rectilinear roadway and (ii) a multiple-lane curvilinear roadway. Special emphasis was given to the implementation of full-duplex (FD) cooperative communication protocols to avoid communication disruption in the absence of a line-of-sight (LOS) channel. Importantly, we found that the cooperative FD V2V-VLC is promising for avoiding communication disruptions for cars traveling in realistic curvilinear roadways. Results in this work can be easily extended to the case of vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), which can also be promising in cases of low-car-density environments. Full article
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