Vehicular VLC Frequency Domain Channel Sounding and Characterization

Abstract

Vehicular visible light communication (V2LC) has recently gained popularity as a complementary technology to radio frequency (RF) based vehicular communication schemes due to its low-cost, secure and RF-interference free nature. In this paper, we propose outdoor vehicular visible light communication (V2LC) frequency domain channel sounding based channel model characterization under night, sunset and sun conditions with the usage of vector network analyzer (VNA) and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) automotive light emitting diode (LED) light. We further bring forward a new practical system bandwidth criterion named as effective usable bandwidth (EUB) for an end-to-end V2LC system with respect to the real world measurements. We demonstrate outdoor static V2LC channel measurement results, taking into account vehicle light emitting diode (LED) response, road reflections from nearby vehicles and various daylight conditions with respect to varying inter-vehicular distances. Measurement results indicate that, sunlight decreases system effective usable bandwidth due to the limited dynamic range of avalanche photodiode (APD), nearby vehicles cause constructive interference whereas road reflections change time dispersion characteristics of the V2LC channel.