Modulation Format Shifting Scheme for Optical Camera Communication

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a simple and elegant modulation format shifting (MFS) scheme by continuously changing the modulation formats between OOK and Manchester signal for optical camera communication (OCC) using a commercially available mobile phone. Leveraging the MFS scheme, extra data bits are delivered without reducing the pixel width of each bit, resulting in higher transmitted data rate. Meanwhile, multi-thresholding scheme is proposed for modulation format identification and signal decoding at the receiver. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed MFS scheme can achieve a data rate of 8.16 Kbps with the bit error rate (BER) of 2.9 x 10(-3) at the illuminance of 400 lux. In addition, compared with conventional OOK modulation, MFS scheme can remarkably improve the BER performance at the same data rate.