The need for wireless connectivity is ever increasing while conventional radio frequency (RF) communications are limited by the amount of available spectrum. Visible light communications (VLC) are emerging as a promising complementary to the RF wireless, thanks to the enormous available bandwidth in the visible spectrum. Moreover, VLC integrates into the ubiquitous illumination infrastructures to satisfy the need for wireless connectivity indoors. Commercially available light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are low-cost, simple, and have a small modulation bandwidth. For the small modulation bandwidth, VLC systems must enjoy high spectral efficiency to achieve high-rate transmission. Additionally, VLC systems must have high power efficiency to help preserve the critical advantage of LEDs for illumination applications. Furthermore, since LED luminaires are constrained by cost, deployed VLC systems must be low-complexity. Indoor VLC channels are dispersive due to multipath propagation indoors and due to the limited bandwidth of the optoelectronics. However, time-domain equalization on such channels can be prohibitively expensive for long serials. These challenges motivate extensive research on optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). Given those problems and challenges, this thesis introduces novel spectrum- and power-efficient optical OFDM modulation schemes to implement with low complexity in VLC systems. Firstly, absolute value layered asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ALACO-OFDM) is presented to achieve high spectral efficiency and high power efficiency with fewer layers, thus requiring low complexity. Compared to its counterparts, ALACO-OFDM can achieve higher spectral efficiency and information rate even with fewer layers. Antisymmetry-constructed clipped optical OFDM (AC-OFDM) is then introduced as a novel low-complexity modulation scheme. To enhance the spectral efficiency and retain low-complexity, layered AC-OFDM (LAC-OFDM) is introduced, consisting of several layers of AC-OFDM signals. LAC-OFDM is shown to be less complex compared to its state-of-the-art counterparts. Concerning a practical VLC dispersive channel, low-complexity layered ACO-OFDM (L-LACO) is introduced with simple equalization. Mathematically, L-LACO generates identical signals to the existing layered asymmetrically-clipped optical OFDM (LACO-OFDM); however, it requires only half arithmetic operations at both the transmitter and the receiver. For a practical bandlimited VLC dispersive channel, the previous optical OFDM modulation schemes will be no longer non-negative after interpolation with sinc(t) pulse. This thesis presents Kramers-Kronig (KK) optical OFDM (KKO-OFDM) to enhance the spectral efficiency and power efficiency for such bandlimited VLC channels. The KKO-OFDM transmit signal is constructed to be real-valued, non-negative, and strictly bandlimited. Numerical results show that KKO-OFDM outperforms DCO-OFDM and LACO-OFDM in bandlimited VLC channels in terms of optical power efficiency. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Visible light communications (VLC) integrate into the ubiquitous light-emitting diode (LED) luminaires, providing lighting and communication simultaneously. Commercially available LEDs are low-cost, simple, and have a limited modulation bandwidth. These LEDs demand that VLC orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation schemes be spectrum- and power-efficient with low complexity. Concerning these challenges, this thesis presents a novel spectrum- and power-efficient VLC OFDM scheme with low complexity. Firstly, absolute value layered asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ALACO-OFDM) is presented to achieve high spectral and power efficiency while requiring fewer layers. Then layered antisymmetry-constructed clipped optical OFDM (LAC-OFDM) is introduced, which requires low complexity as compared to existing layered asymmetrically-clipped optical OFDM (LACO-OFDM). Given a VLC dispersive channel, low-complexity LACO-OFDM (L-LACO) is furthermore introduced with simple equalization but generates an identical signal to the existing LACO-OFDM. Finally, for a bandlimited VLC channel, Kramers-Kronig optical OFDM (KKO-OFDM) is presented to achieve high spectral and power efficiency. The ALACO-OFDM and LAC-OFDM work in flat VLC line-of-sight links while L-LACO in VLC dispersive links and KKO-OFDM in bandlimited VLC dispersive links with simple equalizer.

The growing demand for wireless communication capacity and the overutilisation of the conventional radio frequency (RF) spectrum have inspired research into using alternative spectrum regions for communication. Using optical wireless communications (OWC), for example, offers significant advantages over RF communication in terms of higher bandwidth, lower implementation costs and energy savings. In OWC systems, the information signal has to be real and non-negative. Therefore, modifications to the conventional communication algorithms are required. Multicarrier modulation schemes like orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) promise to deliver a more efficient use of the communication capacity through adaptive bit and energy loading techniques. Three OFDM-based schemes – direct-current-biased OFDM (DCO-OFDM), asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM(ACO-OFDM), and pulse-amplitude modulated discrete multitone (PAM-DMT) – have been introduced in the literature. The current work investigates the recently introduced scheme subcarrier-index modulation OFDM as a potential energy-efficient modulation technique with reduced peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) suitable for applications in OWC. A theoretical model for the analysis of SIM-OFDMin a linear additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel is provided. A closed-form solution for the PAPR in SIM-OFDM is also proposed. Following the work on SIM-OFDM, a novel inherently unipolar modulation scheme, unipolar orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (U-OFDM), is proposed as an alternative to the existing similar schemes: ACO-OFDMand PAM-DMT. Furthermore, an enhanced U-OFDMsignal generation algorithm is introduced which allows the spectral efficiency gap between the inherently unipolar modulation schemes – U-OFDM, ACO-OFDM, PAM-DMT – and the conventionally used DCO-OFDM to be closed. This results in an OFDM-based modulation approach which is electrically and optically more efficient than any other OFDM-based technique proposed so far for intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) communication systems. Non-linear distortion in the optical front-end elements is one of the major limitations for high-speed communication in OWC. This work presents a generalised approach for analysing nonlinear distortion in OFDM-based modulation schemes. The presented technique leads to a closed-form analytical solution for an arbitrary memoryless distortion of the information signal and has been proven to work for the majority of the known unipolar OFDM-based modulation techniques - DCO-OFDM, ACO-OFDM, PAM-DMT and U-OFDM. The high-speed communication capabilities of novel Gallium Nitride based μm-sized light emitting diodes (μLEDs) are investigated, and a record-setting result of 3.5Gb/s using a single 50-μm device is demonstrated. The capabilities of using such devices at practical transmission distances are also investigated, and a 1 Gb/s link using a single device is demonstrated at a distance of up to 10m. Furthermore, a proof-of-concept experiment is realised where a 50-μm LED is successfully modulated using U-OFDM and enhanced U-OFDM to achieve notable energy savings in comparison to DCO-OFDM.

Visible Light Positioning (VLP) uses modulated LED luminaries to help locate a receiver inside a building. Indoor positioning is becoming an increasingly important service, and visible light has many advantages over other technologies used in indoor positioning systems (IPS). However existing VLP approaches have major drawbacks in robustness that have hindered their ability to be commercially deployed. This work proposes and demonstrates a new way of using light signals in an indoor localization system, titled Angular Diversity Visible Light Positioning (AD-VLP). AD-VLP uses optics at the transmitter to create a structured overlapping light pattern that can be used for positioning. This method is shown to have several advantages over existing VLP approaches, including increased robustness over intensity based techniques while still using a single element receiver. This work also includes an experimental implementation of the proposed AD-VLP system using existing mobile device technology. The experiments prove that sub-meter accuracy is obtainable, even when the receiver is oriented away from the transmitter. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Visible-light optical wireless communications (OWC) is a potential technology that can help resolve the crowdedness of the radio-frequency bands, whilst conveniently exploiting energy-saving light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as transmitters for both illumination and communications. Since there usually are many LEDs in a lighting unit, OWC has a multi- input multi-output (MIMO) geometry which, thanks to its channel diversity, can offer wireless local networks at data-rates many times higher than possible with single-channel systems. In such systems, MIMO-detection methods to separate the different optical channels play an important role in improving the system performance by helping reduce cross-talk between channels. To measure the performance of a particular geometry for MIMO communications, a simulation study, reported in this thesis, found that, amongst the signal- independent metrics, the condition number may be used as a rough predictor of the performance, whilst the channel Signal-to-Interference-and-Noise Ratio (SINR) is the most appropriate for geometry assessment. Combined with the fact that the overall performance of a MIMO system is mostly dominated by its worst channel, this indicates that the most effective way to improve the system performance is to maximise the worst channel’s SINR. One of the possible solutions to improving the SINRs is to use holograms to steer the transmitter images such that their distributions over the photo-detectors reduce overlaps. As LEDs emit partially-coherent light, the beam steering has to be carried out with partially- coherent illumination. By using two lenses to parallelise and collect partially-coherent light before and after the hologram, respectively, the source and image intensity distributions, and the autocorrelation of the hologram can be related in a succinct mathematical relationship. This leads to the development of three computational algorithms based on the autocorrelation function to obtain a quantised hologram with the desired beam-steering capability. These algorithms have their cost functions and performance comparison done at the hologram plane instead of the image plane, which therefore takes less time than traditional image-based methods. Specifically, one of these algorithms is able to save significant time over both the other autocorrelation-based algorithms and the direct binary-search, by 33% and by 50% respectively. A simulation-based study and a corresponding experiment, both reported in this thesis, found that the one of the proposed algorithms had poor power efficiency, whilst the other two were both highly effective in generating digital holograms with precise and power-efficient beam-steering performance. Of these two algorithms, one had superior time performance and was likely the best of the three proposed autocorrelation-based algorithms for generating beam-steering holograms. MIMO-OWC simulation also demonstrated the capability of using beam-steering holograms to design the channel and improve the system performance. Combining reported findings, a strategy can be devised to optimise the throughput of an imaging MIMO-OWC system for a given transmitted power.

There is a pressing need to develop alternative communications links due to a number of physical phenomena, limiting the bandwidth and energy efficiency of wire-based systems or economic factors such as cost, material-supply reliability and environmental costs. Networks have moved to optical connections to reduce costs, energy use and to supply high data rates. A primary concern is that current optical-detection devices require high optical power to achieve fast data rates with high signal quality. The energy required therefore, quickly becomes a problem. In this thesis, advances in single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) are utilised to reduce the amount of light needed and to reduce the overall energy budget. Current high performance receivers often use exotic materials, many of which have severe environmental impact and have cost, supply and political restrictions. These present a problem when it comes to integration; hence silicon technology is used, allowing small, mass-producible, low power receivers. A reconfigurable SPAD-based integrating receiver in standard 130nm imaging CMOS is presented for links with a readout bandwidth of 100MHz. A maximum count rate of 58G photon/s is observed, with a dynamic range of ≈ 79dB, a sensitivity of ≈ −31.7dBm at 100MHz and a BER of ≈ 1x10−9. We investigate the properties of the receiver for optical communications in the visible spectrum, using its added functionality and reconfigurability to experimentally explore non-ideal influences. The all-digital 32x32 SPAD array, achieves a minimum dead time of 5.9ns, and a median dark count rate (DCR) of 2.5kHz per SPAD. High noise devices can be weighted or removed to optimise the SNR. The power requirements, transient response and received data are explored and limiting factors similar to those of photodiode receivers are observed. The thesis concludes that data can be captured well with such a device but more electrical energy is needed at the receiver due to its fundamental operation. Overall, optical power can be reduced, allowing significant savings in either transmitter power or the transmission length, along with the advantages of an integrated digital chip.

The limited overcrowded radio frequency spectrum compelled researchers to ex plore higher frequency ranges for wireless transmission. In recent decades, visible light communications (VLC) have gained lots of research attention thanks to the abundant bandwidth and the existing lighting infrastructure they offer. Throughout this dissertation, we study the downlink of multi-user VLC systems with the aim of operation and architecture enhancement. In this context, we accommodate the chal lenges imposed by the visible light nature such as illumination requirements and mod ulation constraints. On the operation optimization front, we investigate three VLC setups: indoor single cell, outdoor energy harvesting enabled single cell, and indoor energy harvesting enabled multi-cell VLC systems. We formulate, and provide low complexity solutions to, resource allocation problems for each setup while accounting for scenario-tailored system objectives and quality of service requirements. For the first setup, the temporal average illumination is maintained fixed while maximizing the system SE and dynamic time-division-multiple-access is employed to serve users in an interference free setup. As for the second setup, owing to the favored joint lighting and SE maximization, we solve a multi-objective optimization problem accounting for both objectives. We found that the severity of the illumination - communications tradeoff increases as the available system power budget decreases or the minimum rate requirements get tighter. In the third setup, transmitters average currents and receivers fields of view tuning strategies are developed to maximize both spectral ef ficiency and energy harvesting objectives in an interference limited scenario, where spatial illumination uniformity is required. It is found that receivers fields of view tuning is substantial to performance enhancement in dense deployments. On the architecture optimization front, we propose two intelligent reflecting surfaces-aided VLC systems and derive their power density distribution in the receiver plane. In addition, we prove their power concentration capability and quantify their relative gain with respect to one another and with respect to the reflector-free VLC systems enjoying direct line of sight. Finally, we study the channel impulse response of the proposed reflecting systems and quantify the incurred delay spread through exact ex pression, simplified bounds and asymptotic expressions when the number of reflecting elements grows unboundedly.

Recently witnessed a great popularity of unobtrusive Visible Light Communication (VLC) using screen-camera channels. They overcomes the inherent drawbacks of traditional approaches based on coded images like bar codes. One popular unobtrusive method is the utilizing of alpha channel or color channels to encode bits into the pixel translucency or color intensity changes with over-the-shelf smart devices. Specifically, Uber-in-light proves to be an successful model encoding data into the color intensity changes that only requires over-the-shelf devices. However, Uber-in-light only exploit Multi Frequency Shift Keying (MFSK), which limits the overall throughput of the system since each data segment is only 3-digit long. Motivated by some previous works like Inframe++ or Uber-in-light, in this thesis, we proposes a new VLC model encoding data into color intensity changes on red and blue channels of video frames. Multi-Phase-Shift-Keying (MPSK) along with MFSK are used to match 4-digit and 5-digit long data segments to specific transmission frequencies and phases. To ensure the transmission accuracy, a modified correlation-based demodulation method and two learning-based methods using SVM and Random Forest are also developed.

Connected Vehicle (CV) is a motorized vehicle that can communicate with its interior and exterior surroundings. Connected Vehicle focuses on localized vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) to support safety, mobility and environmental applications. In this work, a simulation framework is presented. The framework quantifies Connected Vehicle performance in a forward collision warning situation. The simulation framework evaluates the performance using a vehicular traffic simulator with data from an intersection in Toronto, ON Canada. Various communication methodologies are evaluated at different Connected Vehicle market penetration rates. While DSRC is an interference limited communication methodology and visible light communications is a line-of-sight communication, the combination of both is evaluated to quantify the vehicular network safety performance in terms of time to collision. The performance of DSRC in a vehicular network is quantified in an interference dominant environment and the VLC performance in the vehicular network is evaluated at different weather conditions. In a specific vehicular traffic situation namely for- ward collision warning, this research quantified the VLC performance improvement in vehicular network safety to be 11% in addition to DSRC.This work concludes with the simulation and prototyping of camera communications for vehicular applications. Specifically this thesis presents multiple input / multiple output camera communications link utilizing a luminary array as a transmitter and two orthogonal low cost rolling shutter cameras as a receiver with the purpose of increasing the achievable data rate with one camera. This work has demonstrated that there is at most a doubling in the data rate using two cameras over a single one. This data rate increase is achievable using a specific camera setup namely orthogonal cameras. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

This thesis explores the use of single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) for visible light communications (VLC). The high sensitivity of SPADs can potentially enhance the performance of VLC receivers. However, a SPAD-based system has challenges that need to be addressed before it can be considered as a viable option for VLC. The first challenge is the susceptibility of SPAD-based receivers to variations in ambient light. The high sensitivity of SPADs is advantageous for signal detection, but also makes SPADs vulnerable to variations in ambient light. In this thesis, the performance of a SPAD-based receiver is investigated under changing lighting conditions. Analytical expressions to quantify performance are derived, and an experiment is conducted to gain further understanding of system performance. It is shown that a SPAD-based receiver is highly sensitive to illumination changes when on-off keying (OOK) is employed, and that pulse-position modulation (PPM) is a preferred modulation scheme as it is more robust. The second challenge is broadcasting to SPAD-based receivers with different capabilities. A traditional broadcasting scheme is time-sharing, whereby a transmitter sends data to receivers in an alternating manner. Broadcasting to SPAD-based receivers is challenging as receivers may have diverse capabilities. In this thesis, a new multiresolution modulation scheme is proposed, which can potentially improve system performance over the traditional timesharing approach. The performance of the proposed scheme is analyzed, and a proof-of-concept experiment is performed to demonstrate its viability.

Abstract In visible light communication (VLC), light emitting diodes (LEDs) are used as transmitters; the air is the transmission medium and the photodiodes are used for receivers. This is often referred to as light fidelity (Li-Fi). In this thesis, we provide the methodology to evaluate the performance of VLC hotspot networks in the context of data downloading on the move scenarios by using throughput-distance relationship models. In this context, first we study the different properties of optical transceiver elements, noise sources, characterization and modelling of artificial light interference, different link topologies and then we introduce the throughput-distance relationship model. Secondly, the analytically based throughput-distance relationship has been developed for evaluating the performance of VLC hotspot networks in indoor environment in both day and night conditions. Simulation results reveal that background noise has a significant impact on the performance of VLC hotspots. As expected, in both indoor and outdoor environments the VLC hotspot performs better at night than during day. The performance of VLC hotspot networks is also quantified in terms of received file size at different bit error rate requirements and velocities of the mobile user. Thirdly, we study the performance of hybrid (Radio-Optical) WLAN-VLC hotspot and compare its performance with stand-alone VLC-only or WLAN-only hotspot cases. In this case, we also consider the data download on the move scenarios in an indoor environment for a single-user as well as for multi-user cases. In this hybrid WLAN-VLC hotspot, both the WLAN and the VLC are characterized by their throughput and communication range. Simulations have been performed to evaluate the performance of such network for data downloading on the move scenario by taking into account performance metrics such as filesize, average connectivity and system throughput. Simulation results reveal that the considered hybrid WLAN-VLC performs always better than stand-alone VLC-only or WLAN-only hotspot both for a single and multi-user cases. Finally, this thesis analyses the feasibility and potential benefits of using hybrid radio-optical wireless systems. In this respect, cooperative communication using optical relays are also introduced in order to increase the coverage and energy efficiency of the battery operated device. Potential benefits are identified as service connectivity and energy efficiency of battery operated device in an indoor environment. Simulation results reveal that user connectivity and energy efficiency depend on user density, coverage range ratio between single-hop and multi-hop, relay probabilities and mobility of the user. / Tiivistelmä Näkyvään valoon pohjautuvassa tiedonsiirrossa (VLC) valodiodeja (LED) käytetään lähettiminä, ilma on siirtokanava ja valoilmaisimia käytetään vastaanottimina. Tätä kutsutaan usein nimellä light fidelity (Li-Fi). Tässä työssä tarjoamme menetelmiä VLC ”hotspot” verkkojen suorituskyvyn arviointiin tiedonsiirtonopeus-etäisyysmalleilla skenaarioissa, jossa tietoa ladataan liikkeessä. Tässä kontekstissa tutkimme ensin optisen lähettimen komponenttien eri ominaisuuksia, kohinan lähteitä, keinovalon häiriömalleja ja tiedonsiirtolinkkien topologioita, jonka jälkeen esittelemme tiedonsiirtonopeuden ja etäisyyden välisen mallin. Toiseksi kehitetyn analyyttisen tiedonsiirto-etäisyys mallia käytetään arvioitaessa VLC hotspot verkkojen suorituskykyä sisäympäristössä sekä päivä että yö olosuhteissa. Simulointien tulokset osoittavat, että taustakohinalla on suuri vaikutus VLC verkkojen suorituskykyyn. Kuten odotettua, sisä- ja ulkotiloissa VLC hotspot toimii paremmin yöllä kuin päivällä. VLC hotspot verkkojen suorituskyky arvioidaan myös vastaanotetun tiedoston koon, eri bittivirhesuhteen vaatimuksilla ja liikkuvan käyttäjän nopeuden suhteen. Kolmanneksi tutkimme hybridi WLAN-VLC hotspot verkon suorituskykyä ja vertaamme sen suorituskykyä pelkän VLC- tai WLAN hotspot tapauksessa. Käsittelemme myös skenaarioita jossa tiedoston lataus tapahtuu liikkeessä sisätilassa yhden käyttäjän sekä monen käyttäjän tapauksissa. Tässä hybridi WLAN-VLC hotspot, sekä erilliset WLAN- ja VLC verkot ovat määritelty niiden tiedonsiirtonopeuden ja kantaman perusteella. Näiden verkkojen suorituskykyä arvioitaessa on tehty joukko tietokonesimulointeja verkossa tapahtuvasta tietojen lataamisesta liikkeessä ottamalla huomioon suorituskyvyn mittarit kuten tiedoston koko, keskimääräinen yhteyden kesto ja saavutettu läpäisy. Simuloinnin tulokset paljastavat, että hybridi WLAN-VLC toimii aina paremmin kuin pelkkä VLC tai WLAN hotspot sekä yhden että monen käyttäjän tapauksessa. Lopuksi työssä analysoidaan ehdotetun järjestelmän toteutettavuus ja mahdolliset edut käytettäessä hybridejä radio-optisia langattomia järjestelmiä. Tältä osin esitellään myös kooperatiiviseen viestintään perustuvat optiset releet parantamaan verkon kattavuutta ja energiatehokkuutta akkukäyttöisissä laitteissa. Mahdolliset hyödyt tunnistetaan palvelun konnektiivisuudessa ja energiatehokkuudessa akkukäyttöisissä laitteissa sisätiloissa. Simulointien tulokset osoittavat, että käyttäjien konnektiivisuus ja energiatehokkuus riippuvat käyttäjätiheydestä, kantaman ja etäisyyden välisestä suhteesta yhden hypyn ja monen hypyn välillä, releointi todennäköisyydestä ja käyttäjien mobiliteetista.