RESUMO
Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) visible-light communication (VLC) systems based on the concept of superposed constellation have attracted increasing attention because multiplexing gains can be achieved even in a highly correlated MIMO channel. In this paper, a novel superposed constellation scheme is proposed for 2×2 MIMO VLC systems, where a 2n-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signal is obtained by superposing 4QAM and processed 2n-2-order QAM signals. Based on the original 2n-2-order QAM signal, the processed signal is generated by adding an optimal offset, power normalization, and flipping according to the value of the 4QAM signal. Thus, the required power ratio between the two superposed signals is equal to 1, which not only avoids the power competition in the receiver, but also reduces the risk of the nonlinear distortion of the light-emitting diode at the transmitter. Moreover, benefitting from the flipped superposition method, two additional performance gains are provided. First, thorough Gray coding can be achieved. Second, the received power can be improved because the two transmitted signals are correlated. An algorithm for solving the optimal offset is proposed based on the target of the equal power ratio, and the expression of the received power is derived as well. Then, the performance of the proposed scheme is investigated using detailed simulations in an additive white Gaussian noise channel, where the superposed 64QAM constellation is assumed as an example. Further, we perform an experimental demonstration and examine the performance of the proposed system when a practical optical channel is considered, where nonideal impacts, such as nonlinearity and power competition, may occur. The experimental results confirm that the proposed scheme achieves a lower bit error rate (BER) and a larger dynamic range of driving peak-to-peak voltage compared with the existing superposed constellation schemes. Considering the 7% pre-forward error correction BER threshold of 3.8 × 10-3, the proposed superposed 64QAM constellation system can achieve a maximum transmission rate of 3 Gb/s.
RESUMO
Superposed constellation combined with spatial multiplexing multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques have been increasingly utilized in visible light communication (VLC) systems, as multiplexing gains can be achieved regardless of the correlation extent of the VLC channel. Herein, we propose a novel superposed 64-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellation scheme for 2 × 2 MIMO VLC systems. Considering the nonlinearity of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), two geometrically shaped 8QAM constellations are introduced to reduce the peak-to-average power ratio at the transmitter. Because the two 8QAM constellations are superposed in an interleaved manner, the required power ratio between two transmitted signals is 1, which further reduces the risk of nonlinear distortion and avoids signal-to-noise ratio deterioration induced by power competition. The proposed superposed 64QAM constellation scheme is experimentally investigated comprehensively, where the system performance is evaluated under different transmitted powers, direct current bias currents, and driving peak-to-peak voltages (Vpps). The experimental results show that the proposed scheme achieves better bit error rate (BER) performance than the traditional superposed 64QAM constellation schemes. Below the 7% pre-forward error correction BER threshold of 3.8 × 10-3, the dynamic range of the driving Vpps of the two LEDs improves from 0.06 to 0.4â V and 0.23 to 0.4â V when the optimal power ratio is achieved.
