Advances and prospects in visible light communications**Project supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Nos. 2015AA033303, 2013AA013602, 2013AA013603, 2013AA03A104), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61178051, 61321063, 61335010, 61178048, 61275169), and the National Basic Research Program of China (Nos. 2013CB329205, 2011CBA00608).

Abstract

Visible light communication (VLC) is an emerging technology in optical wireless communication (OWC) that has attracted worldwide research in recent years. VLC can combine communication and illumination together, which could be applied in many application scenarios such as visible light communication local area networks (VLANs), indoor localization, and intelligent lighting. In recent years, pioneering and significant work have been made in the field of VLC. In this paper, an overview of the recent progress in VLC is presented. We also demonstrate our recent experiment results including bidirectional 100 Mbit/s VLAN or Li-Fi system based on OOK modulation without blue filter. The VLC systems that we proposed are good solutions for high-speed VLC application systems with low-cost and low-complexity. VLC technology shows a bright future due to its inherent advantages, shortage of RF spectra and ever increasing popularity of white LEDs.