Ethernet over commercial lighting by a Visible Light Communication

Abstract

A Visible Light Communication (VLC) system was realized upgrading, via minor external modifications, a commercial lamp including its own Phosphorescent Light Emitting Diode (PH-LED). The lamp now provides an Ethernet 10Base-T transmission over a Non-Directed Line-Of-Sight (NDLOS) link in an environment with strong background light (up to ∼3000 lx) and high tolerance to misalignment (up to 45 degrees). The system operation has been tested with packet loss measurements of randomly generated packets and with Bit Error Ratio (BER) measurements of an Ethernet-equivalent 12.5 Mbit/s transmission of a Manchester coded OOK signal over a distance of 1 m in NDLOS. The proposed technology has been implemented into a commercial lighting equipment without any relevant modification of the lamps.