Investigation of 4-ASK modulation with digital filtering to increase 20 times of direct modulation speed of white-light LED visible light communication system

In this demonstration, we propose and experimentally investigate the quaternary-amplitude-shift-keying (4-ASK) modulation with digital filtering to enhance the direct modulation speed of white-light light-emitting-diode (LED) in visible light communication (VLC) system. Here, an ordinary LED commercially available for lighting application with a direct modulation speed of 1 MHz is used. Data rate of 20 Mbit/s can be achieved in a 1 m free space transmission without using optical blue filter. In the previous studies, the transmission rate of LED VLC could only be increased by 2 to 10 times of the direct modulation speed of the white-light LED if using electrical equalization only. Moreover, the adaptive-controlled FIR filter makes the system closer to the matched filtering condition for reducing the inter-symbol-interference (ISI) for the LED VLC. A recorded 20 times enhancement of the direct modulation speed of white-light LED VLC system is demonstrated by using digital filter only and without using optical blue filter. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America