RNN-Based Sequence to Sequence Decoder for Run-Length Limited Codes in Visible Light Communication.

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with visible light communication (VLC) technology can simultaneously offer flexible communications and illumination to service ground users. Since a poor UAV working environment increases interference sent to the VLC link, there is a pressing need to further ensure reliable data communications. Run-length limited (RLL) codes are commonly utilized to ensure reliable data transmission and flicker-free perception in VLC technology. Conventional RLL decoding methods depend upon look-up tables, which can be prone to erroneous transmissions. This paper proposes a novel recurrent neural network (RNN)-based decoder for RLL codes that uses sequence to sequence (seq2seq) models. With a well-trained model, the decoder has a significant performance advantage over the look-up table method, and it can approach the bit error rate of maximum a posteriori (MAP) criterion-based decoding. Moreover, the decoder is use to deal with multiple frames simultaneously, such that the totality of RLL-coded frames can be decoded by only one-shot decoding within one time slot, which is able to enhance the system throughput. This shows our decoder’s great potential for practical UAV applications with VLC technology.