Single color networks: OFDM-based visible light broadcasting

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the performance of optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (O-OFDM) based visible light broadcasting. Although indoor spaces usually have more than one light source, most of the existing works on visible light communication (VLC) in the current literature consider point-to-point communication and few efforts have been made on the scenarios with multiple transmitters. In this work, we consider a broadcasting scenario in which multiple transmitters (light sources) simultaneously emit the same information. Since this network structure constitutes a similar network topology to single frequency networks (SFN) in OFDM-based digital audio/video broadcasting, we coin the term “single color network (SCN)” to refer these visible light broadcasting systems. Based on extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we present the error rate performance of SCNs as well as discuss their lighting performance.