Integration of optical wireless communications (OWC) within switched-mode power supplies (SMPS) / Although visible light communication(VLC) systems can provide high density links for use with IoT devices, an energy efficient, high rate method of designing a VLC transmitter is still unclear. Present designs for transmitters such as the bias-T, designs with switch manipulation, and interleaved converters are not commercially viable due to costly and complex designs that sacrifice energy efficiency for data rate. A design allowing for efficient, high rate communications, while maintaining a low cost would allow for widespread adoption of this technology. In this thesis, a novel approach of integrating power converters and VLC systems is explored by replacing commutating diodes with LEDs. By leveraging switched-mode power supply(SMPS) structures, the power dissipated within the converter may be harnessed and used for communications. The result is a simple and energy efficient solution capable of high rate links. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate buck and boost SMPS topologies that simultaneously increase energy efficiency and provide communications at SMPS switching rate without increasing component count. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Along with the rapidly increasing demand for wireless data while more and more crowded radio frequency (RF) spectrum, optical wireless communications (OWC) become a promising candidate to complement conventional RF communications, especially for indoor short and medium range data transmissions. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is considered for OWC due to its ability to boost data rates. However, the average emitted optical power and dynamic range of driving signals of LEDs are two major constraints in OWC. OFDM waveforms exhibits high upper and lower peak-to-average power ratios (PAPRs), which make OFDM signals optical power inefficient and easy to violate the dynamic range of LEDs, resulting clipping and nonlinear distortions. In this dissertation, we analyze and design optical power and dynamic range constrained OWC systems, for which OFDM is our major subject. We first derive distributions of upper PAPR and lower PAPR of OWC-OFDM signals. Then we analyze the clipped OFDM signals in term of error vector magnitude (EVM), signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR), and achievable data rates under both optical power and dynamic range constraints. The next part of this dissertation is the OFDM system design for visible light communications (VLC) considering illumination requirement. We investigate the illumination-to-communication efficiency (ICE) in VLC-OFDM, and design the brightness control and flickering mitigation schemes for VLC-OFDM. In the end, to reduce the complexity of driving circuits of LEDs , we propose using delta-sigma modulators in VLC-OFDM systems to convert continuous magnitude OFDM symbols into two-level LED driver signals without loss of the communication theory advantages of OFDM.