Visible light wireless data communication in industrial environments

Abstract

Significant implementations and encouraging results have already been achieved using visible light communication (VLC) technology for different applications from indoor to free space optics (FSO) and even underwater communication. The LED light fixtures are about to be used with dual functionality-illumination and fast wireless data communication- A nd when the technology will become mature enough, the general costs for both will considerably decrease. However, especially due to a complex multipath channel impulse response (CIR) evaluation, there are few research in VLC applied in industrial environments. At the same time, in the non-Line of Sight (NLoS) VLC setup with mobile optical transmitter (oTx) and fixed optical receiver (oRx) considered here, both the path loss and multipath-induced dispersion significantly limits the link performance. In this paper, we investigate the CIR into indoor industrial environments. We take into consideration both Intrinsic Optical Properties in Industrial Environments (IOPIEs) and Apparent Optical Properties (AOPs) in Industrial Environments. The VLC setup complexity such as oTx and oRx position and orientation, the geometry and the nature of the indoor surfaces (diffuse or specular) and appropriate positioning of both oTx and oRx required for a suitable implementation of the VLC. The VLC system proposed is also investigate in this work based on data acquisition, simulation and analysis according the ARX mathematical model.