Integrated Circuit System-On-Chip And System-In-A-Package For Visible Light Communications And Navigation

Patent Status

Full Description

Background

Wireless Visible Light Communication (VLC) is enabled by Light Emitting Diodes (LED) and their ability to switch on/off at tens of MHz without flickering. Visible Light Communication offers significant advantages over Radio Frequency (RF) based wireless communication.

• Optical spectrum offers a bandwidth upto 300 THz thereby allowing for streaming at multiple gigabits per second.
• Data rates can be boosted with more emission power without harm to human beings.
• Unable to penetrate walls, VLC is inherently secure.
• Being interference free, VLC can co-exist with and complement existing RF technology.
• VLC devices are inexpensive compared to multi-gigahertz RF devices.

Current VLC systems are essentially a Lego-type testbed that have significant disadvantages. These include:

• Large size and complex electronics.
• Low performance, low reliability and high cost.

Current Invention

Prof. Wang at UCR has developed a patented, system-in-a-package (SIP) and system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture for VLC that integrates all the electronic circuits with the LEDs and photodetectors (PD) to make VLC and Visible Light Positioning (VLP) systems with integrated opto-electronics.

A VLC-based Ad Hoc smart traffics system scenario.

Illustration of an LED-based VLC system scenario for smart hospitals using a given hospital layout.

Advantages

The novelty and benefits of this design and architecture are:

• Small footprint and low cost.
• Very high performance and reliability.
• With integrated Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), larger LED array and demultiplexer, the design will offer better signal quality and wider bandwidth.
• A larger PD array combined with CMOS/CCD imager offers higher data rates.
• Low voltage differential signaling (LVDS) removes background noise.

Suggested uses

• Smart cities
• Smart wireless communication in:
  • RF prohibited hospital setting
  • Smart traffic control, car-to-car collision avoidance and signal data broadcasting
  • Home/Office with higher security, bandwidth, and data rate
  • Retail/Store setting
• Ubiquitous energy efficient computing & Greener broadband wireless communication
• Video streaming over light
• Smart locks

State Of Development

Prototype built and tested

Related Materials

• Visible Light Communication Cyber-Physical Systems-on- Chip for Smart Cities