Uniformity improvement on received optical power for an indoor visible light communication system with an angle diversity receiver

Abstract

In this work, an angle diversity receiver (ADR) structure is proposed to optimize the uniformity of the received optical power distribution in an indoor visible light communication (VLC) system. Taking the rectangular and hybrid layouts with 16 light-emitting diodes as examples, different inclination angles and the number of side detectors are investigated with three diversity combining techniques in a typical room, where the primary reflection of the wall is considered. Simulation results showed that the inclination angles and the number of side detectors would affect the variance and average of the received optical power, and the variance would decrease with the increase of the number of side detectors. In addition, maximal ratio combining is more suitable for the ADR when the variance and average of the received optical power are considered simultaneously. By applying the ADR with five side detectors, the variances of the received optical power will decrease by 81.34% and 86.09% under the rectangle layout and the hybrid layout, respectively. This work will benefit the design and development of the VLC system.