Investigating channel frequency selectivity in indoor visible‐light communication systems

Abstract

Channel characterisation for indoor visible-light communication systems is revisited. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the channel frequency selectivity, or in other words, the significance of inter-symbol interference (ISI) at the receiver and the necessity of channel equalisation to recover the transmitted data. The authors focus on the effect of the indoor channel by assuming no bandwidth constraint on the light-emitting-diodes and by considering a simple intensity modulation technique, excluding discrete multi-tone modulation. The channel impulse response (CIR) is first simulated using the iterative site-based method. Then, conventional metrics for evaluating channel frequency selectivity, that is, the root-mean-square delay spread and channel frequency response are investigated and their practical interest is discussed. The authors also consider the signal-to-ISI ratio (SIR), which they define based on the sampled (i.e. discrete-time) signal at the receiver, and demonstrate its usefulness in determining the necessity of channel equalisation at the receiver. They consider several link scenarios in a medium-size and a large room, and show the significance of the LOS components of CIR in determining the channel frequency selectivity. They also discuss the choice of the receiver filter and explain how it affects the SIR.