Experimental demonstration of 62.5 Mbps VLC link for healthcare infrastructures by incorporating limiting amplifier as an amplification scheme

Abstract

The ongoing pandemic situation of COVID-19 has alarmed global public healthcare and epidemic response mechanisms to a significant extent. In this context, communication services can play an important role in hospitals to drive emergency response mechanisms accurately. Visible light communication (VLC) can become an excellent solution to provide communication services in hospitals as it uses low-cost LEDs to transmit information in the form of light signals which can not interfere with medical equipment and does not impact patient health. However, low bandwidth of LEDs is one of the major challenges, which limits the transmission capacity and distance in VLC system. In this work, we propose a post-amplification scheme based on low-pass filter and limiting amplifier to overcome the inherent bandwidth limitation of commercial LEDs. A 62.5Mbps non-return to zero on-off keying (NRZ-OOK) modulation-based VLC link with error-free transmission can be achieved over a transmission distance of 6 ​m.