Continuous Synchronization for LED-to-LED Visible Light Communication Networks

 

We present and evaluate a physical layer and a distributed, contention-based medium access control protocol that enables reliable communication over room range distances; both are implemented in software using low-cost commercial off-the-shelf building blocks.

September 17, 2014
International Workshop on Optical Wireless (IWOW) 2014

 

Authors

Stefan Schmid (Disney Research/ETH Joint PhD)

Giorgio Corbellini (Disney Research)

Stefan Mangold (Disney Research)

Thomas Gross (ETH Zurich)

Continuous Synchronization for LED-to-LED Visible Light Communication Networks

Abstract

Continuous Synchronization for LED-to-LED Visible Light Communication Networks-ImageOff-the-shelf Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and low-cost microcontrollers provide the foundation for networking using the visible light as communication medium. These networks require fast and stable synchronization and a distributed protocol to handle shared medium access. We present and evaluate a physical layer and a distributed, contention-based medium access control protocol that enables reliable communication over room range distances; both are implemented in software using low-cost commercial off-the-shelf building blocks. Experiments with a testbed consisting of embedded devices equipped with only LEDs demonstrate the scalability of this approach. The performance evaluation indicates that Visible Light Communication is a reliable solution for more than ten devices to bring low-cost and non-complex connectivity to a large number of devices.

Copyright Notice