IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO.

4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017 2681

Current Challenges for Visible Light

Communications Usage in Vehicle
Applications: A Survey
Alin-Mihai Căilean and Mihai Dimian

Abstract—In the context of an increasing interest toward Index Terms—IEEE 802.15.7 standard, inter-vehicle commu-
reducing the number of traffic accidents and of associated nications, optical communications, visible light communications,
victims, communication-based vehicle safety applications have vehicle safety.
emerged as one of the best solutions to enhance road safety.
In this area, visible light communications (VLC) have a great
potential for applications due to their relatively simple design
for basic functioning, efficiency, and large geographical distribu- I. I NTRODUCTION
tion. This paper addresses the issues related to the VLC usage N THE recent years, the modern society shows an increas-
in vehicular communication applications, being the first exten-
sive survey dedicated to this topic. Although VLC has been the
I ing interest towards wireless communication technologies.
Furthermore, this demand is expected to increase exponen-
focus of an intensive research during the last few years, the
technology is still in its infancy and requires continuous efforts tially in the next years [1]. Facing this unprecedented request
to overcome the current challenges, especially in outdoor appli- represents a major challenge for the next years. However,
cations, such as the automotive communications. This paper is in spite of all efforts, due to the limited available band-
aimed at providing an overview of several research directions width, the current networks are not able to fully satisfy this
that could transform VLC into a reliable component of the
transportation infrastructure. The main challenges are identi- traffic demand. Therefore, a new wireless communications
fied and the status of the accomplishments in each direction technology is strongly required to fill-in the existing gap.
is presented, helping one to understand what has been done, An alternative to the existing radio frequency (RF) based
where the technology stands and what is still missing. The chal- wireless communications is represented by the visible light
lenges for VLC usage in vehicle applications addressed by this communications (VLC) technology. VLC uses the visible light
survey are: 1) increasing the robustness to noise; 2) increasing
the communication range; 3) enhancing mobility; 4) performing (380 – 780 nm) as a carrier for the data, and thus it offers
distance measurements and visible light positioning; 5) increas- a 1000 times greater bandwidth compared to the RF com-
ing data rate; 6) developing parallel VLC; and 7) developing munications. Furthermore, the visible light spectrum is not
heterogeneous dedicated short range communications and VLC regulated and therefore the cost of the technology is signif-
networks. Addressing and solving these challenges lead to the icantly reduced. The huge available spectrum enables VLC
perspective of fully demonstrating the high potential of VLC,
and therefore, to enable the VLC usage in road safety applica- to achieve very high data rates that can currently go up to
tions. This paper also proposes several future research directions few tens of Gb/s [2], [3]. Moreover, since this data rate has
for the automotive VLC applications and offers a brief review been achieved in less than a decade after the beginning of
on the associated standardization activities. VLC systems development, it is obvious that the technology’s
potential is even greater. Furthermore, higher data rates could
Manuscript received July 11, 2016; revised January 27, 2017 and March 20,
2017; accepted May 12, 2017. Date of publication May 23, 2017; date of be achieved by using multiple input multiple output (MIMO)
current version November 21, 2017. The infrastructure used in this work communication techniques. These characteristics offer VLC
was supported from the project “Integrated Center for research, development the premise to be part of future 5G technologies [4]–[7].
and innovation in Advanced Materials, Nanotechnologies, and Distributed
Systems for fabrication and control”, Contract No. 671/09.04.2015, Sectoral The VLC technology is also fully compatible to RF com-
Operational Program for Increase of the Economic Competitiveness co- munications, so the two can complement each other, forming
funded from the European Regional Development Fund. This work was hybrid or heterogeneous networks and further enhancing the
supported by the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research
and Innovation, CNCS/CCCDI—UEFISCDI, Contract 36 PED/2017 within communication performances [7], [8].
PNCDI III under Project PN-III-P2-2.1-PED-2016-2011. (Corresponding Another important advantage of VLC is that unlike other
author: Alin-Mihai Căilean.) wireless communication technologies, VLC is safe for the
A.-M. Căilean is with the Integrated Center for Research, Development
and Innovation in Advanced Materials, Nanotechnologies, and Distributed human health. In comparison, the radio waves are currently
Systems for Fabrication and Control, Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, classified as a potential cause of cancer in humans [9]–[12],
720229 Suceava, Romania (e-mail: [email protected]). whereas the infrared (IR) light can cause irreversible thermal
M. Dimian is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Howard University, Washington, DC 20059, USA, and also with the Integrated damage to the cornea. Furthermore, VLC systems do not affect
Center for Research, Development and Innovation in Advanced Materials, the functionality of the highly sensitive electronic systems and
Nanotechnologies, and Distributed Systems for Fabrication and Control, thus, they can be used in RF restricted places (e.g., airplanes,
Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, 720229 Suceava, Romania (e-mail:
[email protected]). hospitals, chemical or nuclear plants). Moreover, in the con-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/COMST.2017.2706940 text of a growing interest to reduce greenhouse emissions,
1553-877X  c 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2682 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017

VLC is also energy efficient, since it uses no extra energy for regarding hybrid VLC schemes, modulation techniques and
data transmission. In its case, the same light is used for both light dimming. Although this survey mentions the Intelligent
illumination and as a carrier for the data. Transportation System (ITS) as a related application, the paper
A major difference between VLC and RF communica- is clearly focused on the indoor scenario. Pathak et al. [19]
tions comes from the inherent properties of the exploited also provide a comprehensive survey on indoor VLC and
electromagnetic waves. The RF waves have the ability to pen- detail the aspects regarding VLC systems and their physical
etrate through most nonmetallic materials, whereas the visible layer characteristics, including channel modeling and modu-
light can only penetrate through transparent materials. Even lation methods, or medium access techniques. The fact that
though in some cases, the limited penetration capability acts this article also mentions vehicular communication as a highly
as a disadvantage by limiting the mobility or the coverage promising use case clearly points out the importance of the
area, it could also represent a major benefit, since it limits the domain and emphasizes the necessity of a survey presenting
interferences between the non-Line-of-Sight (nLoS) systems a detailed state of the art in this area. Furthermore, none of
and prevents eavesdropping. the existing surveys highlights the extra challenges involved
In addition to the upper mentioned benefits, one of the great- by the outdoor environment or by the requirements imposed
est advantages of VLC is the ubiquitous character. In VLC, to the inter-vehicle communications domain.
the data transmission capacity is enabled by fast switching The VLC usage in outdoor environments assumes sig-
light emitting diodes (LEDs), as an additional function besides nificantly different conditions and thus, there are dissimi-
lighting. Thus, the data is transmitted onto the instantaneous lar premises and expectancies. In this context, this article
power of the light, at speeds unperceivable by the human addresses the challenges imposed by the usage of VLC in auto-
eye. Since it is mainly based on the already existing lighting motive applications. These challenges are at the same time:
infrastructure, VLC has the potential to provide high-speed i) old as VLC, ii) quite current as the VLC developers are still
wireless communications wherever there is artificial lighting, working on addressing them, and iii) still forthcoming as the
indoor and outdoor. Currently, the main application area envi- technology will have to be continuously improved. In the exist-
sioned for the VLC technology is in providing high data rate ing VLC literature, there are several other papers that address
indoor links for fast Internet connections or for fast data broad- the challenges that could further enhance the VLC technol-
cast. Significant efforts were made by the researchers in the ogy and pave its way towards the market [19]–[22]. However,
area, allowing VLC to obtain impressive results in a rela- this is the first article that strictly refers to the automotive-
tively short period. Another challenging application domain related VLC applications. Furthermore, unlike other papers,
for VLC is represented by the communication between vehi- this one offers an up to date review on how these chal-
cles and/or between traffic infrastructures and vehicles. Even lenges are addressed by the scientific community, providing
though right from the early stage VLC has been found suit- a summary of the existing solutions for each challenge.
able for traffic applications [13]–[15], this domain has been The rest of the survey is structured as follows. It begins by
rather neglected by the scientific community, compared to the providing a view of the general structure of the VLC systems
indoor VLC applications. In indoor applications, the challenge in Section II. Section III emphasizes the motivations of using
was to provide high data rate links with communication ranges VLC in vehicular communication applications, underling its
of few meters. On the other hand, in automotive applications, advantages, and points out the similarities and the differences
the challenge is to achieve long range robust communications, compared to the indoor VLC scenario. Section IV highlights
but at the cost of lowering the data rate. the technology shortcomings and points out the challenges in
This survey addresses the usage of the VLC technology the field. The scientific community response to these chal-
in vehicular communication applications, as a possible way lenges is reviewed, pointing out the main solutions found
to increase the safety and efficiency of road transportation. for their overtaking. Section V contains a discussion about
Although this domain is almost 20 years old, as far as we the road ahead, proposes several future research directions
know, there are no conclusive reviews on this topic. Indeed, that could be addressed and resumes the activities related
there are several reviews on the VLC usage [16]–[19], but nei- to the VLC standardization, whereas Section VI presents the
ther of them strictly addresses the usage of VLC in automotive conclusions of this survey.
applications. Thus, in [16], after addressing the aspects related
to free space optical (FSO) communications, smart lighting
and VLC, the authors conclude that the problem of wireless II. G ENERAL A RCHITECTURE OF A V ISIBLE
networking and of energy efficient lighting should be treated L IGHT C OMMUNICATIONS S YSTEM
together, rather than as complementary technologies. Hence, A VLC system mainly consists of a VLC transmitter that
the solid state lighting (SSL) emitters should be developed modulates the LED produced light and a VLC receiver based
considering the requirement for both lighting and networking, on a photosensitive element (generally a positive-intrinsic-
and thus a tradeoff should be sought. In [17], the problem negative (PIN) photodiode or an image sensor) that is used
of outdoor long range FSO communication is addressed but to extract the data signal from the modulated light beam.
unlike in this work, the paper only considers the near IR band. The transmitter and the receiver are physically separated from
A well detailed survey on VLC can be found in [18]. Here, the each other, but connected through the VLC channel. For
authors justify the transition toward VLC, list the VLC ben- VLC systems, the line-of-sight (LoS) is a mandatory condi-
efits, describe the system structure, and approach the issues tion. A schematic of a VLC system is illustrated in Fig. 1.

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR VLC USAGE IN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS: SURVEY 2683

Fig. 1. Basic architecture of a visible light communications system: a) emitter; b) receiver.

As the VLC system’s structure is detailed in [18], this sec- consisting of a microcontroller and a digital power switch,
tion will provide only the information necessary for a proper the LED light source is able to become a broadcast sta-
understanding of the rest of the article, without approach- tion unit. A second argument comes from the advantages of
ing all the aspects related to the hardware development and using LED lighting sources and their envisioned omnipresent
implementation of the VLC systems. distribution. As a matter of fact, LED lighting sources are
expected to totally replace incandescent, fluorescent and halo-
A. VLC Emitter gen lighting [24]–[26]. Accordingly, VLC has the potential of
The VLC emitter transforms information into messages that becoming a ubiquitous wireless communication technology.
can be transmitted over the FSO medium by using visible light.
The purpose of the VLC emitter is to simultaneously provide B. VLC Receiver
illumination and to transmit data. However, the data transmis- The VLC receiver is used to extract the data from the
sion must not affect in either way the lighting or signaling modulated light beam. It transforms the light into an elec-
functions. From this reason, the VLC emitter must use the trical signal that will be demodulated and decoded by the
same optical power or if the application requires it, to allow embedded decoder module. Depending on the required perfor-
for light dimming. Furthermore, the VLC emitter must not mances and on the cost constraints, the decoder can be based
induce any noticeable flickering. on a microcontroller or a FPGA. The careful design of the
A central component of the VLC emitter is the encoder VLC receiver represents a serious issue because in most appli-
which converts the data into a modulated message. The encoder cations, the VLC receiver’s performances have the greatest
commands the switching of the LEDs according to the binary influence on the performances of the VLC system, deter-
information and the required data rate. The binary data are mining the communication range and the resilience against
thus converted into a modulated light beam. In the simplest interferences.
case, the data is modulated using On-Off Keying (OOK), but 1) Photodiode Based VLC Receivers: Generally, the VLC
more complex modulation techniques might be used as well. receivers are based on photosensitive elements which have
Detailed information regarding other modulation techniques high bandwidth and offer the possibility of high-speed com-
used in VLC applications can be found in [17]–[19]. A cost munications. However, as the incident light might contain
effective solution for the encoder is represented by the usage of parasitic light coming from other light sources (i.e., artificial
microcontrollers. In most cases, their quality is high enough or natural), the receiver is subject to significant interferences.
to ensure relatively good performances. However, in more The performances of the VLC receiver can be enhanced by
complex applications, the microcontroller must be substituted using an optical filter that rejects the unwanted spectrum com-
by a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) which will be ponents, such as the IR component. Moreover, in high speed
able to provide improved performances. applications using white light, the optical filter allows only
The parameters of the VLC emitter are mainly limited by the the passage of a narrowband radiation, corresponding to the
characteristics of the LEDs. The data rate (i.e., transmission blue color. The reason for this choice is that the white light
frequency) depends on the switching abilities of the LEDs, is obtained from blue LEDs and yellow phosphor, and in this
while the emitter’s service area depends on the transmission case, only the blue component of the white light is used for
power and on the illumination pattern (i.e., emission angle). the signal processing [27], [28].
Currently, the SSL industry is able to produce general pur- The effect of the interferences can also be reduced by nar-
pose LEDs that can offer switching frequencies of few tens rowing the receiver field of view (FOV), which in consequence
of megahertz. However, as VLC is rapidly advancing toward influences the service area. A wider FOV enables a wider
multi-Gb/s data rates, the LEDs “slow” switching capacity is service area but comes with the disadvantage of capturing
the one limiting the system’s performances [23]. more noise, leading to signal to noise ratio (SNR) degradation.
An argument in favor of VLC development comes from However, indoor short-range applications require increased
the simplicity of transforming any LED light source into mobility and the possibility of narrowing the FOV is not con-
a VLC emitter. Simply by adding an encoder module sidered in most of the cases. On the other hand, for outdoor

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2684 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017

long-range applications, where the range induces small angles, candidate for mobile long distance applications, as in the auto-
the narrow FOV is an effective solution. The receiver’s FOV motive domain. Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that the
is determined by the FOV of the optical system, which also high performances come at a very high cost, limiting their
concentrates the light on the photodetector by using a lens. extended use applicability.
The photodetector is usually based on a reverse biased silicon Before ending this section another major difference between
photodiode operating in photoconductive mode that gener- photodiode and image sensor VLC receivers must be pointed
ates a current proportional to the incident light. The value out. In the case of photodiode-based receivers, the back-
of the photocurrent also depends on the photodiode’s spec- ground noise is received and processed simultaneously with
tral sensitivity. From this reason, increasing the area of the the data signal, whereas the camera-based receivers are able
photodetector can enhance the performances of the system. to spatially isolate the noise sources. Further on, in photodiode
However, the area of the photodetector strongly influences based receivers the data is recovered by using different types
its capacitance, which in turn influences the achievable band- of analog and/or digital signal processing techniques, whereas
width. In these circumstances, choosing the photodetector’s in the second case, the information is obtained based on high
area represents a compromise between SNR and bandwidth. complexity image processing techniques. In some cases, the
Next, due to the small values of the generated photocurrent, increased complexity of these procedures does not allow real
a transimpedance circuit is used to transform the small cur- time data decoding or, when it does, it requires a power-
rent into a voltage. The transimpedance solution offers a fair ful and thus expensive data processing unit. As this article
trade-off between gain-bandwidth product (GBP) and noise. addresses the VLC usage in automotive applications, where
The voltage provided by the transimpedance circuit is ampli- the cost control is an essential aspect, it can be considered
fied and filtered to remove high and low frequency noise, and that at least for the near future, camera-based VLC systems
also the DC component. After all these operations, the signal are mainly reserved for laboratory prototypes and not for the
should correspond to the emitted signal containing the data. general usage.
Then, the data processing unit decodes the information from
the reconstructed signal obtaining the original message. III. C ONSIDERATIONS ON THE VLC U SAGE
2) Camera Based VLC Receivers: Considering the IN V EHICULAR A PPLICATIONS
multitude of devices that are already equipped with cameras
The following section addresses the opportunity of using
(e.g., smartphones, tablets, laptops or automobiles), image sen-
VLC for inter-vehicle communications, presenting some of the
sors are also being used in VLC applications for the light
characteristics of the technology, its advantages considering
reception. As an extended survey regarding optical commu-
the use in automotive applications and the main characteristics
nications based on image sensors can be found in [29], this
that differentiate vehicular VLC applications from the indoor
subsection will only point out some relevant characteristics of
VLC ones.
the image sensors receivers.
The image sensor consists of a high number of photodetec-
tors arranged in a matrix or on an integrated circuit. Although A. General Context
widely spread, such devices have several drawbacks consider- The number of automobiles that use the transportation
ing the VLC usage. A first problem comes from their noise infrastructure is constantly increasing. Within this context,
performances which are lower than the ones of independent the number of victims resulting from traffic accidents is
photoelements. However, the main limitations come from the also increasing, making road accidents one of the leading
camera’s limited number of frames per second (fps), which causes of death [33]–[35]. Furthermore, for young people aged
limit the communication performances. Most of the low cost between 15 and 29 years, traffic accidents represent the leading
cameras have up to 50 fps, which means that such devices cause of mortality [34], [35]. On these grounds, the scien-
can only achieve very low data rates. The data rate can be tific community, the automotive industry and the governmental
enhanced up to several kb/s by using the rolling shutter prop- agencies are joining their efforts to increase the safety of
erty of the camera [30], [31]. The rolling shutter is a procedure vehicles and roads. These joint efforts have led to a new
which uses a row by row reading of the pixels instead of paradigm in vehicle safety. If in the past, the research efforts
reading the entire matrix at once. Yet, the results are only were directed on how to help people survive accidents, cur-
suitable for static low data rate applications. An attempt to rently, the research efforts are focused on how to help people
develop vehicle VLC systems using low-cost image sensor is avoid accidents. Within this context, it is considered that the
found in [32]. However, the communication distance is below safety and the efficiency of the transportation system can be
1 meter, and therefore its usage in automotive application can substantially increased by using wireless communications to
be only limited. enable real-time data exchange between vehicles and traf-
Significantly improved results are obtained when high speed fic infrastructures. By combining vehicle to vehicle (V2V)
cameras are used. In their case, the number of fps is about and infrastructure to vehicle (I2V/V2I) communications, up to
1000, and therefore higher data rates of up to several Mb/s 81% of all vehicle crashes could be prevented [36]. However,
and long distance communications are enabled. The main supporting inter-vehicle communications is rather problematic
advantage of image sensor VLC receivers is the enhanced because of the channel characteristics and of the strict limits
FOV which allows a wide area data reception. All these for quality of service. The VLC technology has the potential to
characteristics make image sensor VLC receivers to be a strong significantly enhance the performances of vehicular networks,

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR VLC USAGE IN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS: SURVEY 2685

especially in high traffic densities [37], as it is not affected by

the broadcasting storm phenomenon [38], [39].
The Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) [40] consid-
ers using state-of-the-art cooperative technologies in order
to reduce the number of accidents and of associated fatal-
ities. Furthermore, the ITS aims to improve the efficiency
of the transportation system and therefore, to reduce the
CO2 emissions. ITS adds value to the transportation system
by providing real-time access to relevant traffic information.
By using I2V/V2I and V2V communications, ITS contin-
uously collects traffic data, analyzes it and distributes it,
in order to increase the vehicle awareness. Moreover, this Fig. 2. Integration of LEDs lighting systems in series vehicles.
information enables an efficient management of the trans-
portation system, increasing efficiency and reducing traffic
jams. The assembled data is used to automatically adjust the
transportation system to different traffic situations. Therefore,
a crucial aspect for the ITS is the widespread distribution.
However, in order to ensure its effectiveness, the system
requires a large geographical distribution of the intelligent
vehicles and of the intelligent infrastructures, enabling it
to gather more data and to efficiently distribute it. Withal,
a major challenge for the ITS is to maintain the imple-
mentation cost as low as possible, but without affecting its
reliability.
The benefits of adding intelligence to the transportation
system are the efficient monitoring and management of the
traffic, which in turn can help reduce congestion and provide
optimized alternative routes, depending on the traffic situation.
Increasing the efficiency of the transportation system will help
save time, money and will reduce pollution. Fig. 3. Examples of LEDs usage as part of the transportation infrastructure.

road illumination will also be able to provide communica-

B. Advantages of VLC Usage in Vehicular Applications tion support as in [43] and [44]. In such a case, the constant
LEDs are highly reliable, energy efficient, whereas their life- short distance between the street light and vehicles, along
time exceeds the one of classical light sources. These unique with the high power implied, enables high data rates and
characteristics made the car manufacturers consider replac- increased communication stability. Under these circumstances,
ing the classical halogen lamps by LED lighting systems [41]. this particular case of I2V VLC has a huge developing poten-
Currently, LED-based vehicle lighting systems are commonly tial. Moreover, due to the low-cost and high reliability, LEDs
used on production vehicles (see Fig. 2). begun to be integrated in traffic signs as well, in order to
The efficiency of the LEDs made them being used for LED- improve the visibility. Currently, this type of traffic signs
based traffic lights as well. This new generation of LED-based are used mainly on the road segments which are consid-
traffic lights is rapidly gaining popularity and its usage on ered with a high accident risk. Several examples of LED
extended scale is only straightforward. These traffic lights have usage as part of the transportation infrastructure are illustrated
as advantages a low maintenance cost, long life and low energy in Fig. 3.
consumption and also offer a better visibility. While some of Considering the upper mentioned context, one can see that
the cities authorities have already replaced the classical traffic LED-based lighting will be part of the transportation system,
lights with LED-based traffic lights, other cities are progres- being integrated in vehicles and also in the infrastructure.
sively following this trend. The standard sizes for the traffic The large geographical area in which LEDs lighting will
lights are 200 and 300 mm in diameter [42]. The LED-based be used, combined with VLC technology will allow ITS to
traffic light consists of a large number (100 - 200) of LEDs that gather data from a widespread area and thus, the VLC tech-
offer besides the signaling function, the possibility to provide nology can enable widespread distribution of high quality
data communication. The enhancement of the LED traffic light communications. The success of the ITS is largely dependent
with communication capabilities does not affect its compliance on its penetration. Insufficient penetration means insufficient
to the traffic regulation standards. data collection and distribution. If it is to think of RF solu-
Considering the trends in the lighting industry, it is expected tions for the ITS, this will not be possible for a long time
that in the near future, street lighting will be LED based as ahead because, in order the system to be effective, it is needed
well. Therefore, with the help of the VLC technology, the that all intersection and streets to be equipped with RF units,

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2686 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017

Fig. 4. VLC usage scenario: road safety data is transmitted using the vehicle lighting systems, the street lighting system and the traffic lights.

which implies a huge implementation cost. Hence, one of the from the indoor scenarios, highlighting the similarities and the
strongest advantages of VLC is its low complexity and the differences.
reduced implementation cost. Being already half integrated in 1) Considerations on the Communication Premises,
the existing transportation infrastructure, as well as in vehi- Associated Expectancies and on the Communication Channel:
cle lighting systems, makes VLC a ubiquitous technology and Although we are talking about a single technology and
ensures it a fast market penetration. A scenario that illus- thus a similar operating principle, the VLC usage in outdoor
trates the usage of VLC in communication based vehicle safety applications assumes different expectations, dissimilar channel
applications is presented in Fig. 4. Here, road safety data (e.g., conditions and therefore rather different challenges. First of
location data, phase of the traffic light and time before next all, indoor applications are expected to provide very high
change, maintenance work and speed limits) is broadcasted data rates (multi Gb/s) for distances that are usually below
towards the approaching vehicles with the help of intelligent 2 or 3 meters (i.e., the distance between the celling and
traffic lights and of the street lighting system. Additionally, the workspace). On the other hand, outdoor applications in
the vehicles are able to exchange data concerning their state general and automotive applications in particular, are expected
(e.g., location, velocity, acceleration, engine state, etc.). In the to provide significantly larger communication distances (i.e.,
case of RF, the problem of market penetration is considered currently up to 100 meters) and in consequence, lower
a serious issue that can block the deployment. It is estimated data rates can be achieved. Furthermore, if we strictly refer
that in order for such a system to begin being effective it to communication-based vehicle safety applications, this
requires at least a 10% market penetration [45]. However, to use case requires very high packet delivery ratio (PDR)
achieve this, it would require a few years in which the system and latencies as low as 20 ms [37], meaning that a higher
brings little or no benefits, meaning that the deployment cost robustness to disturbances is expected.
is mostly supported by the early buyers. Notwithstanding Besides the significantly different expectancies for vehicular
that a significant part of the consumers replace the car in VLC versus indoor VLC, another major difference between
this period without having any benefit from the purchased them comes from the totally dissimilar channel conditions.
system. In indoor applications, the influence of the ambient light
interferences is negligible, as the light of the VLC emitter
C. Differences Between the Indoor and the is usually the main source of light. Compared to the indoor
Outdoor Scenarios channel, the outdoor one is significantly more problematic,
Before moving toward the challenges which slow down as it is strongly influenced by the background solar radia-
the advancements in vehicular VLC applications, this sec- tion. In this case, the power of the incident parasitic light
tion briefly emphasizes the issues that differentiate the outdoor can be up to 10 mW/cm2 , compared to the power of the

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR VLC USAGE IN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS: SURVEY 2687

light containing the information which can be as low as few resolution is less essential, allowing for diming resolution as
μW/cm2 , Furthermore, the outdoor VLC channel also involves high as 10%.
the presence of other light sources, disturbances caused by Another VLC specific problem is related to light intensity
the weather, whereas the dynamics of the vehicular environ- flickering. The IEEE 802.15.7 standard is again very strict
ment make the channel highly unpredictable. Hence, achieving in this problem and it proposes only the usage of run length
the mandatory robustness becomes much more problematic in limited (RLL) coding (e.g., Manchester, 4B6B, or 8B10B).
this case. Such codes prevent flickering by having an equal number of
In conclusion, indoor applications have as main challenge to 1s and 0s. However, as demonstrated in [47], the Manchester
find enhanced designs and improved modulations techniques code for example is very bandwidth consuming, whereas 4B6B
with the purpose of increasing the data rate, whereas in vehic- or 8B10B codes are less throughput efficient. In vehicular
ular communication, the main goal is to mitigate the effects applications the flickering mitigation can be less rigorous,
of the intense ambient interferences and to ensure a reliable as the exposure to the modulated light is rather short and
long range link. also less direct. Furthermore, due to the high modulation
2) Bidirectional Communications - Very Problematic in frequencies, the flickering effect is only limited. This fact
Indoor Applications Quite Simple in Vehicular Applications: can enable the usage of other codes, besides the RLL ones.
A challenging issue regarding indoor VLC applications is rep- Being able to use other codes is quite important, as different
resented by the bidirectional communications. Establishing codes can ensure higher performances in different situations.
VLC bidirectional communications represents a major issue Thus, the Miller code was found to be suitable for future
in the case of indoor applications. Besides the technical dif- MIMO applications [47], [48], spread spectrum codes were
ficulties caused by the mobile conditions, the most important found to increase the robustness to noise [49], [50], overlay
problem is represented by the fact that the majority of the coding enables hierarchical coding ensuring the reliability of
indoor devices do not have a lighting function that could the high priority data [51], whereas multi-tone codes offer the
be used for data transmission. To solve this problem, indoor premises for higher data rates.
applications consider the usage of a second communication
technology (i.e., generally RF or IR) for the data upload. This
approach is quite efficient in terms of achievable data rate, IV. C URRENT C HALLENGES R EGARDING VLC U SAGE IN
but it has the disadvantage of a more complex design and V EHICULAR C OMMUNICATION A PPLICATIONS
therefore, a higher cost. In the upper-mentioned context, the following section
In automotive applications, the usage of the VLC tech- addresses the main challenges for the future development of
nology is very straightforward, as all the involved devices the VLC technology, in order to make it fully compatible
(i.e., vehicles and traffic infrastructures) have a lighting func- to the requirements imposed for communication-based vehi-
tion, which can be used to transmit the data. Furthermore, in cle safety applications. Besides introducing the challenges and
this case, the power of the light is relatively high, favoring pointing out their importance, this section presents a review
relatively long communication distances. of the existing solutions and perspectives to address each
3) Outdoor Applications Are Less Stringent to the Lighting challenge.
Requirements: Unlike in other wireless communication tech-
nologies, in VLC, the light wave carrier is perceivable by
the human eye. Thus, another advantage concerning the VLC A. Challenge 1 – Increasing the Robustness to Noise
usage in vehicular communication applications comes from The strongest problem for outdoor VLC is triggered by
the fact that this domain is less stringent concerning the light- the numerous sources of parasitic light, which perturb the
ing requirements. In indoor applications, VLC have to be communication. As demonstrated in [52]–[54], the vehicular
maintained while providing high resolution diming (i.e., as VLC channel is extremely noisy, being affected by various
low as 0.1%). Supporting communication in these circum- types of light, each of them with its specific characteris-
stances implies the usage of specially designed modulation tic. Therefore, we have incandescent lamps which produce
techniques. The IEEE 802.15.7 standard [46] for optical com- a 100 Hz interfering signal and its harmonics that can go
munications using visible light proposes two solutions for up to 2 kHz, the fluorescent lamps with a spectrum extend-
high resolution diming based on OOK and variable pulse ing up to 20 kHz, and the fluorescent lamps geared by
position modulation (VPPM), but in their case the diming is electronic ballasts which generally produce band interfering
achieved by reducing the data rate, respectively by reducing signals between 20 - 40 kHz. Moreover, in this last case,
the communication distance. lower amplitude interferences can extend up to more than
Concerning V2V applications, in their case no dimming is 1 MHz [54]. Hence, all these light sources are at the same time
implied whatsoever, as the vehicle lighting systems have a con- important sources of degradation in the optical wireless chan-
stant light intensity. The same statement can be true for I2V nel. From this reason, the IEEE 802.15.7 standard [46] moves
applications as well. Here, the traffic lights or the traffic signs the communication to an upper band, where the influence of
do not change the lighting intensity. On the other hand, I2V the artificial light sources is less significant. More precise,
communications based on the street lighting systems might for the outdoor VLC applications, the standard specifies the
involve diming for energy saving applications based on light usage of optical clocks of 200 kHz for OOK and of 400 kHz
intensity control. However, in such applications, the diming for VPPM.

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2688 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017

In addition to the artificial light sources, the sunlight rep-

resents the most powerful source of noise. Thus, the power
of the background light fluctuates in one day with approx-
imately 20 dB [55]. In this case, the unmodulated parasitic
light incident on the photodetector introduces a very strong
DC component. Although the DC component can be easily
removed using capacitive filters, the generated current also
produces a shot noise component. In the presence of back-
ground light, the shot noise is the dominant noise source.
Moreover, if directly facing the receiver, the strong sunlight
can saturate the photoelement, making it blind and thus,
obstructing the communication. An accurate and highly appre- Fig. 5. Sun radiation intensity and PIN photodiode sensitivity over the visible
ciated model of the optical wireless channel can be found light spectrum.
in [56]. Furthermore, the dynamic nature of the vehicular envi-
ronment and the diverse weather conditions make the VLC
channel very unpredictable. Besides sunlight, VLC can also also be found in [63] and [64]. Besides conventional lenses,
be affected by snow or by heavy dust, which can obstruct Fresnel lenses have been found to be very effective in the
the communication path, and therefore, influence the power SNR enhancement [65], whereas in [66], their usage has
of the received signal. Moreover, the water particles from fog been confirmed experimentally to enhance communication
or from rain drops, affect the light passage through a combina- performances under fog conditions.
tion of absorption, reflection, and scattering [57], [58], further Another solution to significantly enhance the SNR in day-
increasing the channel unpredictability. time conditions is suggested in [55]. Here, the authors use
In addition to the above mentioned factors, automotive VLC a VLC receiver containing two front-ends, each of them
applications imply long distance communications (currently equipped with a narrow band optical filter (40 nm) dedi-
up to 80 - 100 meters [59], [60]), which are significantly cated to a specific spectrum component (color). The front-
affected by distance dependent path loss. Consequently, the ends are connected to a selective combining circuit, which
SNR of such applications is quite low. For all these reasons, selects the signal to use based on the highest SNR. This
increasing the robustness to noise is the strongest challenge method considerably enhances the robustness to noise,
for automotive VLC applications. enabling a reliable, low BER communication, even in daytime
The existing literature on VLC admits the multitude of conditions.
perturbing elements and struggles to find efficient solutions A rather similar, but more complex, approach to address
to mitigate them. As previously mentioned, the sunlight is the problem of intense background light in vehicular applica-
the strongest source of noise for outdoor VLC systems and tions is based on the usage of spectrum sensor arrays [67].
so, the most difficult to counteract. In general, the power This method involves wavelength division followed by signal
of the received noise is strictly dependent of the receiver reconstruction based on individual weightings for each specific
FOV. Therefore, the simplest and probably the most effi- spectrum component [68]. This approach enables a precise
cient solution to diminish its effect is by narrowing the noise rejection allowing for an optimized signal reconstruc-
FOV [56], [61]. In most cases, the VLC receivers are equipped tion, and therefore it maximizes the SNR. Even if this proposal
with an optical collecting system that reduces the FOV, and is more complex than the previously mentioned examples,
in consequence, the environmental light coming from the it is probably one of the most advanced solutions in the
sides. The optical collecting system usually englobes an opti- field. Furthermore, although the authors did not emphasize this
cal concentrator or lens, that focuses the incoming light aspect, their technique can also compensate for the color spe-
on the photosensitive element. The concentrator provides an cific atmospheric attenuation and for the variable sensitivity of
additional gain whose value is given by eq. (1) [56]: the PIN photodiodes. As illustrated in Fig. 5, the sun radiation
⎧ has different intensities over the light spectrum, whereas PIN
⎨ n2
g(ψ) = sin2 FOV , 0 ≤ ψ ≤ FOV
photodiodes have different spectral sensitivities throughout the
(1)
⎩ spectrum. This fact makes the green and the blue color sig-
0, ψ > FOV,
nals to be more vulnerable to noise compared to the red color
where n is the optical concentrator refractive index and ψ is signals. This aspect has been experimentally observed in [62],
the angle of incidence with respect to the receiver axis. where the receiver had a significant (approx. 30%) communi-
Such a solution is experimentally confirmed in [62]. Here, cation distance difference between the red color of the traffic
by using a focal lens with a FOV of ± 10◦ , a commu- light and the green color.
nication distance of up to 50 meters is achieved, whereas One can observe that all the upper-mentioned SNR enhance-
the bit error rate (BER) is maintained lower than 10−7 , ment solutions are more or less, based on optical filtering
even in outdoor sunny conditions. Although this solution techniques. However, there are also other solutions to enhance
significantly enhances the SNR, it has as disadvantage the the resilience to noise. A different approach to mitigate
fact that it proportionally reduces the mobility. Similar the effect of parasitic light, without affecting the receiver
approaches based on narrow FOV and optical filters can mobility is proposed in [69]. In this case, the gain of the

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR VLC USAGE IN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS: SURVEY 2689

TABLE I
pre-amplification stage was calculated in order to prevent pho- T HE H IGH P RIORITY S AFETY A PPLICATIONS [37]
todiode saturation and to enable communication even under
direct sunlight exposure. The solution is efficient in terms of
robustness to noise. However, because of the limited gain, it
has the disadvantage of a relatively short communication dis-
tance (10-14 meters). On the other hand, in [70] and [71],
the robustness to noise is improved by using spread spec-
trum coding. More exact, they use a modulation technique
based on Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) using
sequence inverse keying [72], which enables the system to
achieve a steady communication range of more than 40 m.
Even though the resilience to noise is considerably enhanced,
the raw data rate drops by 10 times (20 kb/s) due to the
large bandwidth required by the modulation. The high poten-
tial of the digital filters has led to the development of fully
digital signal processing VLC architectures. Such structural
designs enable superior filtering results and therefore enhance
the robustness to noise [73], [74]. Furthermore, such systems
are more flexible, enabling parameter adjustments and thus,
the usage in variable situations (e.g., mobile multi-channel
communications [73]).
From a software point of view, the communication resilience
to noise can also be enhanced by lowering the data rate and
by using punctured codes based on different puncturing ratios. TABLE II
Although this solution is quite efficient, it has the disadvan- I NTER -V EHICLE D ISTANCE IN D IFFERENT T RAFFIC C ONDITIONS [37]
tage of significantly affecting the throughput and therefore the
data rate performances [75], [76].
Although this article approaches several challenges that
have the potential to enhance VLC vehicular communications,
enhancing the robustness to noise is the crucial challenge.
Thus, progresses made in this area will determine the approach
for the rest of the challenges, whereas problems in this
area will negatively affect all the other aspects.

B. Challenge 2 - Increasing the Communication Range

The second main challenge to enable the usage of the spectral region, and aims to enable communication distances
VLC technology in automotive applications is increasing the of up to 1000 meters. However, in RF-based applications, long
communication distance. As long-distance communications distance communications involve long distance interferences.
involve very low power signals at the receiver side, and there- Therefore, since each vehicle creates interferences on an
fore low SNR levels, this challenge is closely related to the area greater than the communication area, reliability concerns
upper-mentioned noise mitigation problem. might arise [37], [79]–[83]. Furthermore, the chances of
Financially supported by the U.S. Department having an accident with a vehicle 1000 meters away are
of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety “quite low”, pointing out that shorter communication distances
Administration, the Vehicle Safety Communications might be envisioned in order to increase the reliability. Table I
Consortium (VSCC) consisting of BMW, Daimler Chrysler, summarizes the requirements imposed by the VSCC for the
Ford, GM, Nissan, Toyota, and VW has concluded that the eight most important communication-based vehicle traffic
safety and the efficiency of the transportation system can applications [77]. In these cases, communication distances
be substantially increased by using wireless communications below 300 meters are required. However, if we are to look at
to enable real-time data exchange between the vehicles and Table II which embodies the average inter-vehicle distances
the traffic infrastructures. Furthermore, VSCC has published in several particular traffic situations and conditions, one can
a report [77], where it has defined the preliminary vehicular see that most of the traffic situations involve shorter distances.
communication requirements. Referring to the communication As it can be observed, in most environments, the involved
distance, the report specifies ranges of up to 1000 meters. distances are shorter than 160 m.
These specifications stood at the base of the development of Within the upper mentioned context, the existing VLC
the IEEE 802.11p standard for wireless access in vehicular prototypes achieve low error communication distances that
environment (WAVE) [78], also known as dedicated short can go up to 100 meters in the case of the camera-based
range communications (DSRC), which uses the 5.9 GHz systems [84]–[87], and 40 - 60 meters for the photodiode

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2690 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017

TABLE III
S UMMARY OF THE E XISTING L ITERATURE ON E XPERIMENTAL I2V/V2V D EMONSTRATIONS

based systems [60], [62], [70]. Therefore, in order to be fully In this case, the irradiation pattern of the VLC emitter RE
compatible with the automotive domain, the communication (W/cm2 ) is given by eq. (4) [56].
distance needs to be further enhanced. A presentation of
the technical characteristics for some of the most relevant RE = (Pt R0 (ϕ))/d2 (4)
I2V/V2V prototypes is summarized in Table III.
where Pt is the emitter emission power, and d is the emitter
A specific VLC problem is the fact that unlike other wireless
receiver distance.
communication technologies, in VLC, the light wave carrier is
When wide angle emission LEDs are used, the irra-
perceivable by the human eye. Therefore, the emission power
diation pattern can be enhanced by using focal lenses,
is strictly dependent on the primary application, which is light-
as in [63] and [64]. The communication distance can be
ing or signaling and also on the eye safety norms. However, as
increased by using optical lenses at the receiver side as well.
VLC are direct LoS communications, this generally maximizes
This solution is very efficient and even more popular. For this
the power efficiency.
reason, this technique is used in most of the VLC receivers
From the emission point of view, one way to enhance the
intended for long distance applications [61]–[63], [84]. The
communication distance is by using optimized irradiation pat-
most obvious demonstration showing the impact of optical
terns and optimized LED placement within the LED light
lenses usage can be found in [64]. In this case, by narrowing
source [88]. Moreover, a VLC emitter aimed for long dis-
the beam divergence from 120◦ to 18◦ , and by using a 25 mm
tance applications should also have a narrow angle emission
focal length lens at the receiver, the communication distance
pattern. A VLC emitter is considered a Lambertian emitter
is increased from 1 to 31 meters.
and therefore, its radiant intensity distribution R0 (ϕ) can be
As vehicular communications are highly dynamic applica-
approximated according to eq. (2) [56].
  tions, the emitter-receiver distance is rapidly changing. In such
m+1 a case, a high gain can lead to photodiode saturation. As
R0 (ϕ) = cosm ϕ (2)
2π previously mentioned, in order to prevent photodiode satura-
where ϕ is the angle with respect to transmitter and the order tion and to enhance the robustness to noise, in some cases [69],
m is depending on the half power angle (HPA) of the emitter, the gain of the receiver is limited, which in turn reduces the
in accordance with eq. (3) [56]. communication distance. A solution to overcome this problem
is by using an automatic gain control (AGC) circuit, which
ln 2
m=−   (3) automatically adjusts the amplification of the data signal,
ln cosφ1/2 enabling long distance and low BER communication, even in
where φ1/2 is the transmitter semi angle; daytime conditions [62]. For the same purpose, in [63], the

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR VLC USAGE IN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS: SURVEY 2691

relatively low price LEDs. The future evolution of the VLC

technology is still strongly dependent on the advancements
in the SSL industry. Nevertheless, even if the trends in the
development of new materials encourage us to be optimistic,
a special attention should be focused towards developing more
efficient photosensitive elements, capable to detect even lower
signal powers, and therefore to enable longer communication
ranges.

C. Challenge 3 - Enhancing Mobility

In order to improve the SNR, the effect of the back-
ground noise is usually reduced by narrowing the receiver’s
FOV. Although this solution is efficient in terms of SNR
enhancement, as VLC require direct LoS between emitter and
receiver, the narrow signal reception angle reduces the mobil-
ity. Nevertheless, for the usage in vehicular communications,
VLC also has to fully comply with the mobility of the vehicles.
The VLC connection between two moving vehicles has been
experimentally confirmed, for photodiode [92] and for cam-
era based receiver. However, in most cases, the experimental
Fig. 6. Relay assisted scenario: the traffic light sends a message that is
received by the first car and retransmitted to the car behind [89]. evaluations of the VLC systems are performed with the emitter
and the receiver relatively aligned. Nevertheless, in real situa-
tions, the traffic light, for example, is set at a height between
2.5 and 5 meters above the road [42]. This is for sure a serious
AGC circuit has been replaced by a limiting amplifier, enabling issue that again, will significantly influence the performances
variable communication distance. of the system, limiting the service area.
Photodiode-based VLC receivers generally use Silicon PIN A first solution to address this problem was the integra-
photodiodes, operating in the photoconductive mode. This tion of a tracking mechanism based on a low cost cam-
setup offers high sensitivity and a linear response. In long era with active control of the position, as in [59] and [60].
distance applications avalanche photodiodes could be used The proposed technical solution consists of a narrow FOV
instead, as they are more suitable in low power applications. photodiode-based receiver, a low cost camera used for emitter
However, in their case, the noise is also amplified making detection, along with horizontal and vertical motors to posi-
the receiver suitable only for scenarios in which there are no tion the photodiode receiver. Thus, this solution combines the
sources of parasitic light. advantages of both photodiode and camera based receivers,
Another technique to increase the communication distance, while maintaining a fair tradeoff between mobility and costs.
especially for high priority event-driven messages is by using Although the solution proved to be quite efficient in terms of
multi-hop transmissions. Such structures are normally used to mobility, communication distance and robustness to noise, the
extend the signal coverage for limited power transmissions, high complexity of the design affected the acceptability of this
but in the case of VLC applications they could also be used method. A rather similar solution to extend the signal recep-
to address network nodes that are not within the transmit- tion region is proposed in [93]. In this case, the camera system
ter’s LoS. In such a case, the source of information transmits is replaced by a light sensors array which is used to determine
a message which is received by the vehicles in its vicin- the emitter – receiver received power. Based on this assess-
ity. The vehicles receiving the message, recognize its high ment, the receiver sensor’s elevation angle is adjusted in order
priority, and forward it to the vehicles behind, creating a relay- to compensate for the alignment angle variation. To further
assisted network. Such a scenario is illustrated in Fig. 6, and enhance the received power signal an optical lens is used as
has been experimentally demonstrated in [89], using the VLC well. The suitability of the method is confirmed experimen-
technology. tally, and the results showed an increase of the received signal
In addition to the upper-mentioned aspects, in the practical power for a significantly enlarged communication area.
implementation, special attention should be focused on the Another solution would be to use more photodetectors ori-
optimal placement of the road side units (traffic lights, street entated for different reception angles. The signal processing
lights, traffic displays) [15], [90]. In this case, the height and unit should analyze the signals from each photodetector and
the orientation of the emitter are of maximum importance, decide which signal(s) can be used for the message reconstruc-
especially when long distances are envisioned [90], [91]. tion. The problem can be solved in a similar manner by using
Before finalizing the debate on this challenge, it must be more than one sensor on each side of the vehicle, as in [94].
pointed out that all the advancements in the VLC domain This way, at least one of the sensors will be properly aligned
have been sustained by the SSL industry, which is now able with the emitter and it will be able to receive the incoming
to provide highly-efficient, highly-reliable, fast switching and data. Nevertheless, this solution should be firstly focused on

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2692 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017

an optimal configuration analysis for receivers and emitters,

as these parameters will be the ones determining the perfor-
mances of the link. The placement parameters determining
the optimum configuration are the mounting height and the
mounting angle of the road side unit (RSU) emitter and the
mounting angles of the on-vehicle receiver. In most cases,
the RSU mounting height is determined by the enforcements
in the field and not by the VLC requirements, and conse-
quently the mounting angles of the RSU and of the on-vehicle
receiver remain the main adjustable placement parameters. On
the receiver’s side, this evaluation will probably lead to vehi-
cles that will have VLC transceivers optimally arranged for Fig. 7. Multiple emitter identification and spatial isolation of noise sources
inter-vehicle communication and VLC transceivers optimally 
c [2014] IEEE, with permission from [86].
arranged for RSU to vehicle communication.
We should also mention that determining the optimum
configuration for the RSU and for the on-vehicle receiver should have a wide FOV for the horizontal axis to enable
involves a mobility versus communication distance compro- data reception from the entire width of the road and a nar-
mise. According to [90], the optimum configuration is the row FOV for the vertical axis to diminish the effect of the
one with the longest available communication length, but as parasitic light. On the other hand, for I2V communication,
showed in Section IV-B, eq. (2)–(4), an emitter optimized for when the emitter is placed several meters above the road (i.e.,
long range communication has a narrow irradiation pattern, 2.5-5 m for traffic light), the FOV should be relatively nar-
and thus its mobility is affected. The solution we consider row for the vertical axis and wide for the horizontal one. This
proper to address this problem without affecting the commu- solution could significantly enhance the mobility, while main-
nication distance neither the mobility has the cost of doubling taining the robustness to noise, with a rather simple design.
the number of LEDs inside the RSU (i.e., traffic light). Thus, The mandatory LoS limiting mobility problem could also be
the data transmission can be done alternatively, using narrow mitigated using multi-hop communications, as in [89]. In this
angle emission LEDs for long range communication and wide case, a node receiving a high-priority message will distribute
angle emission LEDs for short range wide angle transmis- it in its vicinity.
sions, and thus enhanced mobility. Although this solution has In indoor applications, the mobility is enhanced by
a slightly higher cost, its hardware implementation remains using angle diversity receivers (ADRs) which con-
simple, whereas it provides a fair solution for enhanced mobil- tain multiple narrow FOV [98], [99] or different FOV
ity, without affecting the communication range. In [95], an photodiodes [100], [101]. The photocurrent is processed
enhanced V2V and V2I communication model is proposed, using different signal combining techniques to optimize the
taking into consideration the vehicle position and posture (i.e., receiver’s performances. Despite the fact that these solutions
horizontal and vertical deflection angles). Based on this model, have confirmed results only in indoor applications, their
the authors propose a VLC based cooperative diversity scheme operating principle is fully compatible to long range outdoor
which should enable enhanced cooperation between vehicles applications as well. A different solution to address this
and enhanced BER results. problem is proposed in [102]. This concept envisions an
A different approach to compensate for the mobility of the adaptive FOV receiver able to evaluate the environmental
vehicles is suggested in [96]. In this case, the authors consider conditions with the help of several sensors. Based on the col-
the usage of laser range finders as a backup for the VLC link lected data, the receiver should be able to optimally adjust its
in an autonomous driving application. Thus, the vehicles are FOV. The FOV adjustment would be possible using relatively
using the VLC technology to continuously exchange position simple mechanics or based on a transparent LCD display,
data in order to enable an adaptive cruise control. However, in placed in front of the photodiode, and which changes its
situations where due to mobile conditions, the VLC technology transparency depending on the level of the background light.
is not able to support communications, the vehicle is still able It should be mentioned that the FOV limitation is not
to maintain a safe distance from the vehicle in front with the so stringent for the camera-based VLC receivers. For such
help of the laser range finders. receivers, the FOV is significantly larger, allowing the recep-
Rahman et al. [97] address the mobility problem caused tion of data from the entire width of the road. This is possible
by the mandatory LoS conditions by establishing a LoS link without affecting the robustness to noise because in this case,
via a relay vehicle which will be dispatched to reestablish the the lenses are capable to condense the light, permitting spa-
communication. The proposed algorithm identifies the relay tial isolation of the parasitic light sources (Fig. 7). Therefore,
vehicle based on the relocation cost and the visibility analysis. experimental validation of moving on-vehicle mounted VLC
Concerning the VLC receivers, an optimized solution for receivers has been confirmed [84]–[86].
the mobility problem might consider the development of opti- Despite the fact that in their current configurations
mized receivers based on the estimated emitter-receiver angle. some of the existing VLC prototypes are not able to
Thus, for V2V communication, the transceivers are relatively fully support mobile conditions, analytical studies in the
aligned on the vertical axis and consequently, the receiver field have showed that with an optimized emitter and

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR VLC USAGE IN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS: SURVEY 2693

receiver(s) positioning, fully mobile communications are

possible [15], [90], [91], [103]. Nevertheless, future work
should be concerned in clearly determining the optimal
receivers positioning and the suitable designs in order to ensure
full mobility.

D. Challenge 4 - Distance Measurement and Visible

Light Positioning
In traffic safety applications, the information concerning the Fig. 8. Inter-vehicle distance measurement using the time of flight.
vehicle location and its surroundings are very important, either
in autonomous vehicles or in driving assisting systems. At
this time, the global positioning system (GPS) is the most
frequencies of few dozens of MHz [115]. However, the LEDs
common tool for location determination. Although it is very
used in automotive applications are generally high power,
popular, GPS has relatively poor performances [104] due to
and so they are slow switching devices. So, the experimen-
link blockage and multipath, making it unfeasible in urban
tal advances in this field are postponed for the moment.
canyons, inside tunnels or underground. Besides GPS, mod-
Considering this aspect, Béchadergue et al. [116] proposed
ern vehicles use various types of positioning sensors (i.e., radar
a phase-shift rangefinder using a 1 MHz square signal achiev-
or lidar) to obtain information concerning the surroundings.
ing 10 cm resolution for distances up to 25 m and 30 cm
Even though the accuracy of such systems is quite high, they
resolution for distances up to 30 m. The method relies on
generally come at an increased cost. Furthermore, the per-
the concept called Distance Estimation via Asynchronous
formances of 24 GHz or 79 GHz operating radar might be
Phase Shift (DEVAPS) and was firstly presented for radio
affected by severe interferences as the number of equipped
sensors [117]. Thus, instead of simply reflecting the received
vehicles increases [105], whereas LIDAR’s scanning rate is
signal, the transceiver receives, processes and only then it
quite slow (10 Hz) [106] and again, mutual interferences can
makes the retransmission, restoring this way the signal’s
appear [107], [108].
energy and enhancing the SNR.
Within this context, in addition to lighting and commu-
In other cases, VLP was considered achievable by using
nication, VLC could also be used to provide cost effective,
TDOA techniques [118]. In such a case [119], the receiver
low complexity, and high accuracy positioning, while using
should use more than one photosensitive element for the light
the vehicle lighting system [109]. The performances of visi-
detection. Although suitable mostly for indoor application,
ble light positioning (VLP) have already been confirmed for
VLP could also be achieved using techniques based on the
indoor applications. Here VLP offers 3D positioning with
received signal strength (RSS) [120]. Nevertheless, the accu-
centimeter accuracy [110]–[112]. Nevertheless, outdoor posi-
racy in this case can be maintained only for several meters.
tioning is more challenging [113] and thus, outdoor VLP
More complex ranging systems involve the usage of VLC
solutions are one step behind.
in combination with other techniques. In [121], VLP is used
By using the headlights and the taillights, the distance
along with a laser radar to increase the accuracy, whereas
between two moving vehicle can be determined (Fig. 8).
in [122], the distance is determined using a camera system and
Similar to GPS, which is based on the time difference of
image processing techniques. In this case, VLC is used to pro-
arrival (TDOA) between two signals received from two dif-
vide additional data concerning the vehicle’s size, data which
ferent satellites with known positions, VLP uses a high rate
is used to ensure the proper image processing.
repetitive on/off keying sequence to determine the phase dif-
It should be mentioned here that as the VLC technology
ference of arrival, which can be used to determine the relative
in general, and the automotive VLC applications in particu-
position [114], [115], as expressed in eq. (5) [116].
lar, are still in the early stage, long range photodiode-based
c ϕ
D= · (5) VLP applications are currently at simulation level. However,
2f 2π as the technology evolves, fully demonstrable VLP systems
where D is the distance, f is the modulation frequency, ϕ is the are expected. On the other hand, in addition to light inten-
phase shift and c is the light velocity. In this case, the distance sity, image sensors are also able to detect the angle of
measurement resolution and thus, the positioning accuracy are arrival (AOA), and therefore, the ranging/positioning perfor-
depending on the frequency of the signal [115], and it is given mances of high speed image sensor are one step ahead. Thus,
by eq. (6) [116]. the experimental demonstration of VLC and VLP, using high
speed image sensor has been achieved, with an estimation error
c δϕ min
vδDmin = · (6) below 0.3 m for distances up to 60 m [106]. Furthermore, as
2f 2π the system has been further improved, accurate distance mea-
where δDmin is the distance measurement resolution and δϕ min surements have been accomplished even in mobile conditions,
is the phase measurement resolution. with the vehicle rolling at 30 km/h [106], [123]. The system
Thus, considering a typical highway recommended inter- measures the range by using phase only correlation. For mobile
vehicle distance of 40-50 m, in order to achieve a distance conditions, the system uses an algorithm to reduce the influ-
estimation error below 1 m, such a system would require ence of vibrations caused by the road surface irregularity. It

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2694 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017

should be also mentioned that even though the accuracy of this to the lower SNR levels, and on the other hand, due to the
system is lower than the one of LIDAR systems, their mea- fact that the LEDs used in these applications are generally high
surement time is only of 2 ms, compared to LIDAR where the power, and thus, their switching time is slower. To address this
scanning rate is of 10 Hz. Furthermore, these results can be second issue, Zafar et al. [23] debate the usage of laser diodes
further enhanced by adopting high speed stereo vision pro- in VLC application, whereas in [127], a 12 m 2.5 Gb/s VLC
cessing, with two high speed image sensors. In this case, link using a laser diode source is experimentally demonstrated.
with the help of triangulation, centimeter accuracy can be Nevertheless, their integration is currently postponed due to
obtained [106], [123]. the eye safety norms.
To improve the data rate of long-distance VLC applications,
E. Challenge 5 - Increasing Data Rate future research should investigate the behavior of the indoor
In vehicle VLC applications, the robustness to noise, the modulation techniques in the outdoor scenario. However, it is
communication distance, the packet delivery ratio, the low unlikely to achieve comparable data rates. Again, the chances
latencies are all more important than the data rate. However, it to accomplish this challenge are strongly related to the noise
is highly desirable to increase the data rate when this enhance- mitigation problem.
ment does not affect the upper mentioned features. In indoor
short range applications, VLC proved to be able of achieving
very high data rates that can go up to few tens of Gb/s [2], [3]. F. Challenge 6–Developing Parallel Visible
The high data rates are obtained using more complex modula- Light Communications
tions like OFDM [124] or multi-level codes [125]. In outdoor Developing MIMO VLC applications could offer the oppor-
applications, the data rates are significantly lower. In most tunity to increase the data rate by transmitting the info on
cases, the existing photodiode-based VLC systems aimed for parallel channels. Nevertheless, unlike in indoor applications,
long-distance applications achieve data rates that are lower MIMO techniques could have an even more important role.
than 100 kb/s [59], [62], [69], [70]. In the best cases, such Considering the fact that in communication-based vehicle
systems achieve data rates of 1-2 Mb/s [60]. Much better safety applications the communication robustness, the packet
results are obtained by the camera-based VLC receivers. In delivery ratio and the reduced latencies are considered more
their case, data rates that can go up to 20 Mb/s [84]–[86] important than the data rate, MIMO techniques could be used
or even 55 Mb/s [87] were experimentally accomplished. to divide the transmitted data according to its priority (i.e., high
However, even in these cases, the data rates are signifi- priority data and low priority data). Accordingly, with the help
cantly decreasing when the distance increases (see Table III). of MIMO techniques, the high priority data can be transmitted
The higher data rates achieved by the camera based VLC in parallel to the low priority data, but with different character-
receiver are achieved with the help of MIMO techniques istics (i.e., modulation, data rate, power) in order to ensure the
and are strictly determined by the performances of the cam- proper reception. In this case, the usage of the MIMO tech-
era (i.e., up to 1000 fps). In their case, each LED of the niques will not be motivated by the data rate increase but it
emitter can be considered as a parallel channel communicat- will be motivated by the reliability it brings to the envisioned
ing with a pixel region on the camera. To further increase application.
the data rate, complex modulation and coding techniques are In MIMO VLC, multiple optical sources are treated as
used [51], [87]. different transmitters, mainly with the purpose of increasing
Concerning the required data rate in vehicular communica- the data rate. However, unlike in RF systems, VLC MIMO
tion applications, this is rather difficult to clearly define. The links are more complex to design, because in VLC the paths
IEEE 802.11p standard specifies data rates from 3 to 27 Mb/s. between emitter and receiver are very similar. In indoor VLC
However, in this case, due to the mutual interferences, the mes- applications, the development of MIMO systems is quite
sage generation rate is up to 10 messages per second. On the advanced, as its potential to increase data rate was consid-
other hand, in VLC, nearby links have no influence on each ered even from the early stage (2004) [128], [129]. Soon
other due to the high spatial reuse and therefore, the message after, experimental demonstration of MIMO VLC systems
generation rate can be significantly increased. Basically, in became available [130]. At this moment, such systems use
VLC networks, the vehicles could continuously communicate four to sixteen or even more parallel channels, achieving
to each other without affecting the communication channel or multi-Gb/s data rates [131]. Currently, the research in this
the packet delivery ratio. domain is focused on the investigation of different MIMO
Very encouraging results concerning long-distance, high modulation/transmission schemes that can further enhance the
data-rate V2V VLC were found in [126]. The simula- performances of such systems [132]–[134].
tion results based on the experimental power measurements In the case of photodiode-based receivers, the MIMO
of a headlamp beam, and considering a photodiode-based receiver consists of independent photodiodes, each dedicated
receiver, indicated that a data rate of 50 Mb/s can be achieved to a specific data transmitting light source. In this case, the dis-
for a distance of up to 70 m, with a BER of 10−4 . Therefore, tance separating the photodiodes is very important as it signifi-
as the technology gets mature, higher data rates are expected cantly influences the communication BER performance [128].
even for long distance applications. Although the MIMO scenario has advantages, it is based on
As already mentioned, the lower data rates accomplished so narrow angle VLC links (i.e., narrow angle emission and nar-
far in long range vehicular applications are on one hand due row FOV receivers) and so, it requires a careful alignment

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR VLC USAGE IN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS: SURVEY 2695

between emitter and receiver, whereas a small misalignment quality – a crucial issue in safety applications. As analyti-
significantly affects the performances. Consequently, MIMO cally demonstrated in [37], the aforementioned technologies
VLC usage in photodiode-based vehicular applications is are complementary solutions. DSRC is a mature technology
rather unfeasible, at least for the moment. In order to address able to provide long-distance communication. On the other
this problem, Cailean et al. [47], [62] evaluate the usage hand, VLC is not able to provide comparable communication
of a bandwidth efficient line coding technique (Miller code) distances, but it is considered to have a great potential in high
that should reduce the interferences between adjacent com- traffic densities, whereas its large geographical distribution
munication channels. Their results confirm analytically and also represents a great benefit.
experimentally the compatibility of the Miller code with vehic- Further in to the future, platooning applications are expected
ular VLC applications and also the future potential in MIMO to be part of the autonomous driving. Vehicles in a platoon are
applications, but do not provide a demonstration of a MIMO expected to adjust their speed and maintain a safe distance to
VLC system using the proposed code. the vehicles in front in order to follow the platoon leader.
On the other hand, as mentioned above, the camera based In order to enhance the efficiency, the inter-vehicle distances
systems are not alignment sensitive, facilitating their usage should be as low as possible (3 – 5 m). Although platoon-
in mobile MIMO VLC applications. A basic experimental ing involves a high amount of high priority data, analytical
demonstration of such a system was initially found in [135]. studies have showed that VLC is able to support this type of
Here, a 64 LEDs emitter was modulated at a rate of 250 Hz, applications [96], [140], [141]. In VLC, the messages for the
whereas the communication distance was up to 30 m. Over the vehicles that are not in the LoS are transmitted in a multi-
years, subsequent developments of this method enabled com- hop manner. In most cases, this is not a problem, because in
munication distances of up to 70 meters and data rates of up to general, potentially dangerous situations are prevented based
64 kb/s [136]. Furthermore, the systems have been enhanced on the data exchange between the closest neighbors, whereas
with the development of an hierarchical overlay coding which for the other vehicles, reasonable delays can be accepted.
enables long distance, low BER transmissions of the high pri- However, when we are talking about high priority control
ority data [51], [136]. This transmission is made in parallel or event driven messages, their distribution should be made
with less important data, for which the communication dis- within stricter limits. In such a case, multi-hop transmissions
tance is shorter and the BER higher, increasing the reliability may lead to an increased end-to-end delay, especially when
of the high priority data. In this case, the usage of the MIMO the VLC data rate is low. Addressing such scenarios with the
techniques was not motivated by the data rate increase but by help of DSRC seems a reasonable solution. The usage of both
the reliability it brings to the high priority data. technologies in such a scenario has showed an enhancement
of the communication reliability [142] and an improvement
of the end-to-end delay [143]. The usage of 5.9 GHz DSRC
G. Challenge 7 – Towards Heterogeneous DSRC & – VLC hybrid networks for platooning applications was also
VLC Networks analyzed in [144]. In this case, VLC was found to substantially
The usage of VLC does not exclude RF communication, improve scalability, especially when hundreds of communicat-
as the two technologies are fully compatible and do not per- ing cars are involved. Moreover, VLC was considered suitable
turb each other whatsoever. Rather neglected in vehicular as a backup technology and also to offload the DSRC network.
applications, heterogeneous networks are a hot research topic Bazzi et al. [145] consider DSRC an indispensable part of
in indoor applications [137]–[139]. Here, the mobile devices vehicle networks but admit the benefits of VLC and consider
(e.g., tablets, smartphones, laptops or computers) do not have this technology suitable for network offloading. Technologies
a lighting function, in order to use it for data uploading. From combination for enhanced performances has also been consid-
this reason, high data rate applications are envisioned only ered suitable in [146] with the mention that in this case DSRC
with the help of a second wireless communication technology. is used together with IR.
So, multi Gb/s VLC links are used for data receiving and RF A different approach for VLC – DSRC heterogeneous
based links are used for the data upload, with the mention that networks is considered in [147]. Here, the transmitted infor-
in RF-sensitive environments, infrared can be used instead. mation is divided between the VLC channel and the RF
Therefore, such hybrid networks are considered to increase channel. Thus, RF is used to transmit omnidirectional data,
data rate, throughput, and fairness [8], [139]. Furthermore, the intended to all vehicles, whereas VLC is used to transmit
heterogeneous networks enhance the mobility and increase the directional information, for vehicles from a specific area or on
reliability of the connection. These two particular aspects are a single lane. Again, the results showed that the two technolo-
envisioned from heterogeneous networks in vehicular commu- gies together provide enhanced results, in terms of coverage
nications and from this reason such networks are essential in and receivable information. Such an approach seems very con-
future vehicular networks. vincing as it is obvious that not all the transmitted information
In vehicular communications, the usage of the two solutions is interesting for all the vehicles, and in such a case, VLC is
should be considered with the primary purpose of enhanc- suited due to its geographical data distribution, whereas in the
ing the reliability. Although VLC has numerous advantages opposite situation DSRC is suitable to achieve highly reliable
for V2I and V2V use, the fact that its application is limited long distance communication. It must be pointed out here, that
to LoS can act as a disadvantage. Therefore, its combina- in DSRC – VLC hybrid networks both technologies gain ben-
tion with 5.9 GHz DSRC may significantly improve link efits. For DSRC, the main benefit is that VLC takes some of

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2696 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017

and unquestionable reliability, their “software hybridization”

in terms of load balancing and handover will be available.
Moreover, one can expect that all the required protocols might
be available even before the hardware aspects are fully final-
ized. After debating the current challenges and the existing
approaches, the following sub-sections aim to propose several
future research directions that are not currently applied in auto-
motive VLC applications, but which might provide superior
benefits once they will be addressed. As standardization pro-
Fig. 9. DSRC and VLC vehicular heterogeneous network. vides the grounds on which a technology is evolving, existing
standardization activities are also reviewed.
the load on it, increasing its reliability and enhancing its per-
formances (latencies and packet delivery ratio). An illustration A. Environment-Adaptive Automotive VLC Systems
of such a hybrid vehicle network is shown in Fig. 9.
Forasmuch the automotive (outdoor) VLC channel is highly
We conclude this section by pointing out that according
dynamic and extremely noisy, whereas the uncontrolled exter-
to the ISO 26262, safety related systems integrated in series
nal conditions make it very unpredictable, the initial approach
passenger vehicles should rely on the data received from
in VLC prototypes design was to develop a VLC system
more than one sensor. Thus, applying the same principle
able to provide communication in the worst case scenario.
in communication-based vehicle safety applications, the two
Nevertheless, such an approach is sure to limit the system’s
technologies, 5.9 GHz DSRC and VLC might be used together,
performances in favorable conditions. Thus, the receiver
with the potential to further improve the performances.
described in [69] was designed to support communication in
direct sun exposure. However, the experimental verification
V. D ISCUSSIONS ON THE ROAD A HEAD has revealed that the limited gain of the pre-amplification stage
Despite being an active research area, the outdoor VLC and a static value of the gain in the amplification stage lead
applications, in general, and vehicular VLC applications, in to a significant decline in communication distances, no matter
particular, attracted a smaller research effort compared to the power of the parasitic light. Next, in [62], the receiver’s
indoor VLC applications, and therefore, they are one step FOV is narrowed to ± 10◦ , limiting the amount of parasitic
behind. However, this fact can be an advantage for the auto- light incident on the photosensitive element, whereas an AGC
motive VLC domain, as it could use some of the already exist- unit manages the optimal gain settings. These solutions were
ing and confirmed solutions from indoor VLC. Furthermore, able to reduce the sunlight influence, enabling a much longer
vehicular VLC application could also inspire from the solu- communication distance. Although the system had remark-
tions found in RF communications in general or from the ones able results, the narrow FOV negatively affected the mobility
found in DSRC in particular, as the latest one is specially limiting its applicability. In [71], the robustness to noise is
designed for the automotive domain. In such a case, technical provided with the help of the DSSS modulation, affecting the
aspects that have been conquered after years of research can data rate. Thus, the response to mitigate the parasitic sun-
be adapted and therefore the gap can be recovered much faster. light affected in turn the communication distance, the mobility,
Moreover, taking benefit from emerging trends and technolo- and the data rate. So, it can be observed that in order to
gies could speed up the technology development. Referring to counteract a particular situation, such as the one in which
the 5.9 GHz DSRC, we should mention that this is a mature the sun is directly facing the VLC receiver, the communica-
technology, with confirmed performances and which is a step tion’s performances are deteriorated for all possible situations.
away from deployment. Similar, a disproportional response to diminish the effects of
This survey addressed the issues related to the practical other negative conditions further affects the overall system
aspects regarding the implementation of the VLC systems performances.
aimed for automotive applications. Within it, the research A concept solution to address this issue and also to simul-
efforts in several crucial directions have been analyzed and taneously address several of the upper-mentioned challenges
reviewed. However, it must be clearly outlined that at least is proposed in [102] and illustrated in Fig. 10. Inspired by
for the next years, the most important challenge in the field is organic examples, the development of self-aware [148], [149]
increasing the robustness to noise. Solving this problem will or of context-aware [150] VLC systems has the potential to
lead to tangible results for other challenges as well. Thus, noise offer an adaptive, highly resilient and exceptional efficient
robust VLC systems will allow long distance and high data rate behavior to the communication. In VLC, this concept is newly
communications, whereas the mobility can be enhanced with introduced and it proposes the usage of several external sen-
the extension of the FOV or with the help of additional VLC sors that perceive the environment conditions (e.g., power of
receivers. Regarding the development of hybrid networks, it is sun and sun’s relative position, weather conditions, relative
now rather obvious that in research, the software component position of the other vehicles, etc.) which could influence
is capable to rapidly adapt itself on the hardware require- the communication process. Based on the evaluation of the
ments and therefore, it can be considered that once the two received information, the VLC devices can adapt the commu-
solutions (VLC and DSRC) will have enhanced performances nication parameters (e.g., type of modulation, channel coding,

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR VLC USAGE IN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS: SURVEY 2697

Fig. 10. Block diagram of an auto-adaptive visible light communications

system. The VLC receiver, englobes adaptive FOV, automatic gain con-
trol, adaptive filters, adaptive triggering, adaptive decoding. These functions
enable it to have an optimal configuration adapted to the specific atmospheric
conditions [102].

data rate, etc.) in order to maximize the performances within Fig. 11. Multi-core processing unit for automotive applications.
the given setup. Furthermore, the VLC receiver can adapt its
internal parameters (e.g., FOV, filters, gain, signal processing
plan, etc.) in order to optimally receive the data. Thus, the
implementation of context-aware adaptive VLC receivers has digital filters usage could represent an important advantage
the potential to improve the overall performances and max- which could improve the next generation of outdoor VLC
imize the reliability, no matter the environment conditions. receivers. Furthermore, DSP techniques also benefit from an
The major role of adaptive VLC systems is also pointed out enhanced flexibility, enabling the receiver to better cope to the
in [151]. Here, the authors propose a realistic channel model highly dynamic and unpredictable environment. Thus, such
for VLC, assuming a mobile user and demonstrate the benefits VLC systems can be easily reconfigured for different situ-
of link adaptation. In addition to VLC channel determination ations. For example, changing from a cut-off frequency to
with the help of sensors, or based on a model, the channel another one can be done by using a different set of coefficients,
conditions could be estimated by using neural networks [152]. whereas in noisy environments, the filtering quality can be
improved by changing the filters’ order. Moreover, in noisy
environments, a DSP sensor can use a more complex configu-
B. Towards Reconfigurable Software-Defined Automotive ration in order to properly extract the data. So, DSP can adapt
VLC Sensors for Improved Performances and Enhanced to variate conditions only by changing some coefficients or by
Flexibility modifying the signal processing plan, without any additional
Another major limitation of existing automotive VLC hardware optimizations. Furthermore, the enhanced flexibility
systems is represented by their rigidity. Thus, as already men- of DSP-based VLC sensors could be given by the fact that such
tioned, a VLC system designed to be very robust to noise has a receiver will be able to reshape its computing plan, intro-
a relatively short communication distance, or a lower data rate, ducing the concept of reconfigurable computing [153], [154]
even in the absence of any noise source. Moreover, the exist- in VLC automotive systems. Thus, according to the SNR, the
ing VLC sensors, mainly based on analogic signal treatment receiver could adopt a simplified signal processing plan in
are difficult to update or to be further improved once their high SNR conditions, or a highly complex plan in low SNR
design is completed. In their case, a functional or a standard conditions. Such a VLC receiver would be able to maintain
update is possible only by designing and implementing a new the communication even in unfriendly environments enabling
hardware prototype. a decent BER, while optimally balancing computation resource
A suitable solution to address this issue would be the utilization. This approach is envisioned to be used on vehi-
development of software-defined VLC sensors. Such a VLC cle embedded DSP systems using multi-core data processing
receiver entails an analog front end unit for light sensing and units (Fig. 11). Thus, the basic operational plan can be pro-
a digital signal processing (DSP) unit for signal treatment. cessed by a VLC dedicated core (permanent), whereas when
In most of the current outdoor VLC receivers, the output more computational power is required, an additional core can
of the transimpedance circuit is processed using analog tech- be (re)allocated (resource sharing).
niques. However, future VLC prototypes could be improved Within this context, the research efforts in the area of recon-
by using DSP techniques [73], [74]. The central component figurable software-defined automotive VLC sensors should
of a DSP system is the digital filter, which can achieve sig- address two main challenges: (1) enhancing the photodiode-
nificantly better results compared to the analogical ones. As based analog front end circuit design and (2) developing and
the outdoor VLC channel is strongly affected by noise, the enhancing the digital signal processing algorithms.

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2698 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017

C. Development and Integration of OLED Visible Light Future work should contribute to new developments in this
Communication Systems for Automotive Applications field of technology. One of the main interests should be
During last decade, organic semiconductors emerged as an research on the border line between organic and inorganic
alternative to inorganic semiconductors in various electron- semiconductors towards new materials, devices and technolo-
ics applications such as light sources, displays, solar cells, gies based on new functional organic and organic-inorganic
photodetectors and integrated circuits, and contributed to the hybrid materials, such as new emissive materials for the visible
development of novel applications such as smart windows and and near infrared spectral range, new electron conducting/hole
electronic papers. This progress is especially driven by the blocking materials or hole conducting materials, materials
mass production of OLED displays that has already reached for controlling interface properties like injection barriers for
approximately $ 15 billion market value in 2016, with an holes and electrons, materials for diffusion barriers, adhesion,
expectation for more than $ 30 billion in 2020 [155]. As and for optimization of other parameters with technological
opposed to area of OLED displays, which reached a cer- importance. The research should also be directed towards new
tain degree of maturity, the use of OLED for both lighting flexible integrated organic circuits, devices for display tech-
and data transmissions is still in its infancy [156]. While nology, and for optical information transfer and processing.
OLED technology has provided several advantages for light- These areas underpin many aspects of telecommunications,
ing and display applications compared to LED technology automotive and aerospace electronics, computer technology,
(such as lower fabrication costs, large area devices, larger and many other kinds of consumer electronics. The resulting
visibility angle), it is lagging significantly behind in commu- technology could offer more flexibility and is expected to be
nication applications (data transfer rate is almost two order more cost effective than established semiconductor technolo-
of magnitude smaller in OLED-VLC compared to LED- gies. The combination of organic and inorganic semiconductor
VLC [157]). An intensive research effort from both academia technology is, however, a challenge for future developments
and industry in order to transition OLED visible light com- since many problems of interface engineering, layer formation
munications (VLC) from potential to applications is required. with controlled morphology, and structuring have to be solved.
The current state-of-the-art research in OLED – VLC is mainly
focused on indoor communications, and it is difficult to fore- D. VLC Standardization Efforts
see short-term solutions to compete with LED – VLC with Although the upper-mentioned challenges have referred to
respect to data transfer rate due to the low charge mobil- physical enhances of the VLC systems, it must be pointed out
ity characterizing organic semiconductor compared to the that the domain can have plenty of benefits from standard-
inorganic ones. ization. A competitive and widely accepted vehicular VLC
Within this context, OLED-VLC applications could be ori- specific standard can reduce the gap between the industry
entated to other areas, such as road infrastructure-to-vehicle and academia, stimulate the development, and speed up the
communications, where OLED advantages can play a more deployment towards the market. Thus, the standardization of
prominent role while the transfer data rate is significantly lim- the VLC has begun right in the early stage, with the first VLC
ited in LED-VLC, as well, due to the external noise (especially, standards (CP-1221 and CP-1222) being published in 2007 by
natural and artificial light). In addition, the mixed organic- the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries
inorganic structure of the proposed OLED may also provide Association (JEITA) and the VLC Consortium (VLCC). The
an improvement in the transfer data rate characteristics. This VLCC members also worked on the CP-1223, a simpli-
approach is encouraged by the recent developments in auto- fied and improved version of CP-1222, published in 2013,
motive industry, which has introduced several OLED-based whereas a new standard proposal referred to as IEC 62943 was
illumination systems for their new luxury car models. A thin approved in 2014, and it is currently being developed by
OLED lighting strip, between 0.8 mm - 1.5 mm, could open the Visible Light Communications Association (VLCA), the
a number of exciting new options for aerodynamically opti- former VLCC [158].
mized cars. Audi working with Philips demonstrated that the In parallel to the Japanese VLC standardization efforts, the
uniformity of light output from an OLED panel is an advan- IEEE 802.15 Task Group 7 began its activity in January 2009.
tageous because will reduce the need for reflectors which are After publishing several draft standards in November 2010
necessary with other lighting techniques. Ultimately automo- and in early 2011, the IEEE 802.15.7 standard for Short-Range
tive OLED lights printed on transparent plastics could also be Wireless Optical Communication Using Visible Light has been
fitted to the windows of cars too. BMW can already work with launched in September 2011 [46]. The IEEE 802.15.7 standard
flat OLED panels but needs to develop the fully conformable addresses the issues related to the PHY and MAC layers, pro-
module that can be used more widely across vehicle designs. viding the specifications for low data rate (11.67-266.6 kb/s)
The second challenge is that OLEDs are currently not bright outdoor and for medium data rate (2-96 Mb/s) indoor
enough to pass the requirements used in safety-critical vehicle applications [159]–[161]. Nevertheless, soon after the publica-
lighting. Thus the industry is planning to gradually introduce tion of the standard, it was found that the data rates specified
OLEDs by combining them with LEDs and its forthcoming for indoor scenarios were too low compared to the perfor-
laser headlights. This will give a composite design solution mances of the existing prototypes [162]–[164]. Referring to
with the various technologies compensating for each other’s inter-vehicle communications and ITS applications, the IEEE
shortcomings. 802.15.7 standard mentions them as possible use cases but

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR VLC USAGE IN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS: SURVEY 2699

without providing any of the specific V2V or I2V regu- development can significantly increase the reliability of vehic-
lation. Within this context, as showed in [165], the IEEE ular networks. Furthermore, the ISO 26262 standard referring
802.15.7 standard is far from being widely accepted, as most to vehicle safety systems states that such a system cannot
of the VLC developers design their systems without consid- depend on the data received from only one sensor. Applying
ering the standard’s specifications. Consequently, after only this philosophy in vehicular communications could definitely
few years after its release, the IEEE 802.15.7 standard is enhance the overall reliability.
being revised by task group TG7r1 [166], [167]. Regarding We conclude this article by emphasizing the fact that the
the ITS applications, the revised version embraces vehicular performances of VLC sensors aimed automotive for applica-
communications as a fundamental VLC use case, mention- tions could be further improved by investigating and integrat-
ing V2I and V2V applications. Thus, after analyzing the ing innovative research trends as – software defined architec-
specific requirements of vehicular communications, the stan- tures, reconfigurable computing, resource sharing, self-aware
dard intends to improve mobility, robustness, data rates and and context-aware adaptive architectures, or organic materials
to enhance the networking protocols [166]. Nevertheless, as integration – trends that are not currently implemented in this
the indoor and the outdoor VLC applications have different area, but which confirmed their benefits in other applications.
challenges, dissimilar expectancies, and rather different imple-
mentation approaches, future standardization efforts should L IST OF ACRONYMS
aim to provide a VLC standard strictly focusing on vehicle ADR angle diversity receivers
applications [86], [165]. Therefore, the IEEE 802.15.7r1 stan- AGC Automatic Gain Control
dard might be a transitional step towards this goal. In a similar BER Bit Error Ratio
way, specific VLC standards are being requested for VLC DMT Discrete Multi-Tone
camera communications [29] and for VLC positioning [168]. DSP Digital Signal Processing
Within this context, we conclude this standardization related DSRC Dedicated Short Range Communications
section by pointing out that at this moment one cannot DSSS Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
talk about a global widely accepted point of view on VLC FOV Field of View
standardization in general and vehicular VLC standardiza- FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array
tion in particular. Actually, there is the VLCA Japanese fps frames per second
standard [158], and then the European view [166], whereas FSO free space optical
different groups working on specific VLC applications or use GBP Gain Bandwidth Product
cases are also demanding specific standardization. HPA half power angle
I2V Infrastructure to Vehicle
IR infrared
VI. C ONCLUSION ITS Intelligent Transportation System
As communication-based vehicle safety applications are LED Light Emitting Diode
emerging as one of the best future solutions to enhance the LoS Line of Sight
safety of road transportation, the VLC technology struggles to MIMO Multiple Input Multiple Output
gain its share in this new area. Vehicular VLC has an increased nLoS non Line of Sight
potential and numerous advantages, but the existing VLC pro- OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
totypes are not capable to fully comply with the requirements OLED Organic LED
imposed by road safety applications. OOK On-Off Keying
This article has made a survey of the VLC systems proposed RF Radio Frequency – within this article, the terms
for automotive applications. The article was orientated on the “radio” or “radio frequency” (“RF”) often refer
current challenges, but it is also providing a review of the up- to the frequency band from 3 kHz up to
to-date solutions aimed at overtaking each of the challenges. 300 GHz, including the frequency bands that are
Increasing the communication range, enhancing the mobility referred to as “radio frequency”, “microwaves”
and improving the data rate are some of the main trials in the and “millimeter waves”.
field. However, the accomplishment of these tasks is strictly RLL Run Length Limited
dependent on solving the main challenge: the ability of reject- RSS received signal strength
ing the parasitic light. As the outdoor VLC channel is subject PDR Packed Delivery Ratio
to multiple sources of parasitic light, the ability to cope with PIN positive-intrinsic-negative
them is crucial for the future development of the technology. SNR Signal to Noise ratio
In addition to the above-mentioned challenges, experimen- SSL Solid State Lighting
tally confirming the VLC potential use in distance measuring TDOA time difference of arrival
and in high accuracy positioning can give VLC an important V2I Vehicle to Infrastructure
advantage towards the usage in automotive applications. V2V Vehicle to Vehicle
As the overall vehicular communication performances could VANET Vehicle Ad-hoc NETwork
be improved by using both DSRC and VLC technologies, this VL visible light
article also addressed the aspects related to the development of VLC Visible Light Communications
VLC – 5.9 GHz DSRC heterogeneous networks. This mixed VLCA Visible Light Communications Association

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2700 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017

VLP Visible Light Positioning [23] F. Zafar, M. Bakaul, and R. Parthiban, “Laser-diode-based visible light
VPPM Variable Pulse Position Modulation communication: Toward gigabit class communication,” IEEE Commun.
Mag., vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 144–151, Feb. 2017.
VSCC Vehicle Safety Communications Consortium [24] M. S. Shur and R. Zukauskas, “Solid-state lighting: Toward superior
WAVE Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments. illumination,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 93, no. 10, pp. 1691–1703, Oct. 2005.
[25] I. L. Azevedo, M. G. Morgan, and F. Morgan, “The transition to solid-
state lighting,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 97, no. 3, pp. 481–510, Mar. 2009.
R EFERENCES [26] M. Cole, H. Clayton, and K. Martin, “Solid-state lighting: The new
normal in lighting,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 109–119,
[1] Cisco Systems, “Cisco visual networking index: Global mobile Jan./Feb. 2015.
data traffic forecast update, 2015-2019,” White Paper, Feb. 2015. [27] H. Le Minh et al., “80 Mbit/s visible light communications
[2] A. T. Hussein, M. T. Alresheedi, and J. M. H. Elmirghani, “20 Gb/s using pre-equalized white LED,” in Proc. 34th Eur. Conf. Opt.
mobile indoor visible light communication system employing beam Commun. (ECOC), Brussels, Belgium, 2008, pp. 1–2.
steering and computer generated holograms,” J. Lightw. Technol., [28] L. Hanzo et al., “Wireless myths, realities, and futures: From 3G/4G to
vol. 33, no. 24, pp. 5242–5260, Dec. 15, 2015. optical and quantum wireless,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 100, pp. 1853–1888,
[3] H. Chun et al., “LED based wavelength division multiplexed 10 Gb/s May 2012.
visible light communications,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 34, no. 13, [29] N. Saha, M. S. Ifthekhar, N. T. Le, and Y. M. Jang, “Survey on
pp. 3047–3052, Jul. 1, 2016. optical camera communications: Challenges and opportunities,” IET
[4] S. Wu, H. Wang, and C.-H. Youn, “Visible light communications for 5G Optoelectron., vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 172–183, Oct. 2015.
wireless networking systems: From fixed to mobile communications,” [30] R. D. Roberts, “A MIMO protocol for camera communica-
IEEE Netw., vol. 28, no. 6, pp. 41–45, Nov./Dec. 2014. tions (CamCom) using undersampled frequency shift ON-OFF key-
[5] C.-X. Wang et al., “Cellular architecture and key technologies for ing (UFSOOK),” in Proc. IEEE Globecom Wkshps (GC Wkshps),
5G wireless communication networks,” IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 52, Atlanta, GA, USA, 2013, pp. 1052–1057.
no. 2, pp. 122–130, Feb. 2014. [31] R. D. Roberts, “Undersampled frequency shift ON-OFF key-
[6] M. B. Rahaim and T. D. C. Little, “Toward practical integration of ing (UFSOOK) for camera communications (CamCom),” in Proc. 22nd
dual-use VLC within 5G networks,” IEEE Wireless Commun., vol. 22, Wireless Opt. Commun. Conf., Chongqing, China, 2013, pp. 645–648.
no. 4, pp. 97–103, Aug. 2015. [32] P. Ji, H.-M. Tsai, C. Wang, and F. Liu, “Vehicular visible light com-
[7] M. Ayyash et al., “Coexistence of WiFi and LiFi toward 5G: Concepts, munications with LED taillight and rolling shutter camera,” in Proc.
opportunities, and challenges,” IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 54, no. 2, IEEE 79th Veh. Technol. Conf. (VTC Spring), Seoul, South Korea, 2014,
pp. 64–71, Feb. 2016. pp. 1–6.
[8] X. Li, R. Zhang, and L. Hanzo, “Cooperative load balancing in [33] Fact Sheet 310—The Top 10 Causes of Death, World Health Org.,
hybrid visible light communications and WiFi,” IEEE Trans. Commun., Geneva, Switzerland, Jan. 2017.
vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 1319–1329, Apr. 2015.
[34] Fact Sheet 358—Road Traffic Injuries, World Health Org., Geneva,
[9] Fact Sheet 296—Electromagnetic Fields and Public Health, World
Switzerland, May 2016.
Health Org., Geneva, Switzerland, Dec. 2005.
[35] Global Status Report on Road Safety 2015, World Health Org., Geneva,
[10] “IARC classifies radio frequency electromagnetic fields as possible
Switzerland, 2015.
carcinogenic to humans,” Int. Agency Res. Cancer, World Health
Org., Geneva, Switzerland, Tech. Rep., May 2011, accessed on [36] “Frequency of target crashes for intellidrive safety systems,” U.S. Dept.
Mar. 20, 2017. [Online]. Available: http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/ Transp. Res. Innov. Technol. Admin., John A. Volpe Nat. Transp.
pr/2011/pdfs/pr208_E.pdf Syst. Center, Cambridge, MA, USA, Tech. Rep. DOT HS 811 381,
Oct. 2010.
[11] Fact Sheet 193—Electromagnetic Fields and Public Health: Mobile
Phones, World Health Org., Geneva, Switzerland, Jun. 2011. [37] A.-M. Cailean, B. Cagneau, L. Chassagne, V. Popa, and M. Dimian,
[12] Fact Sheet 193—Electromagnetic Fields and Public Health: Mobile “A survey on the usage of DSRC and VLC in communication-based
Phones, World Health Org., Geneva, Switzerland, Oct. 2014. vehicle safety applications,” in Proc. IEEE 21st Symp. Commun.
Veh. Technol. Benelux (SCVT), Delft, The Netherlands, Nov. 2014,
[13] G. Pang, H. Liu, C. H. Chan, and T. Kwan, “Vehicle location and
pp. 69–74.
navigation systems based on LEDs,” in Proc. 5th World Congr. Intell.
Transp. Syst., Oct. 1998, pp. 1–8. [38] O. K. Tonguz et al., “On the broadcast storm problem in ad hoc wire-
[14] G. Pang, T. Kwan, C.-H. Chan, and H. Liu, “LED traffic light as a com- less networks,” in Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. Broadband Commun. Netw.
munications device,” in Proc. IEEE/IEEJ/JSAI Int. Conf. Intell. Transp. Syst. (BROADNETS), San Jose, CA, USA, Oct. 2006, pp. 1–11.
Syst., Tokyo, Japan, Oct. 1999, pp. 788–793. [39] N. Wisitpongphan et al., “Broadcast storm mitigation techniques in
[15] M. Akanegawa, Y. Tanaka, and M. Nakagawa, “Basic study on traf- vehicular ad hoc networks,” IEEE Wireless Commun., vol. 14, no. 6,
fic information system using LED traffic lights,” IEEE Trans. Intell. pp. 84–94, Dec. 2007.
Transp. Syst., vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 197–203, Dec. 2001. [40] P. Papadimitratos, A. De La Fortelle, K. Evenssen, R. Brignolo, and
[16] A. Sevincer, A. Bhattarai, M. Bilgi, M. Yuksel, and N. Pala, S. Cosenza, “Vehicular communication systems: Enabling technologies,
“LIGHTNETs: Smart LIGHTing and mobile optical wireless applications, and future outlook on intelligent transportation,” IEEE
NETworks—A survey,” IEEE Commun. Surveys Tuts., vol. 15, no. 4, Commun. Mag., vol. 47, no. 11, pp. 84–95, Nov. 2009.
pp. 1620–1641, 4th Quart., 2013. [41] X. Lon et al., “A review on light-emitting diode based automotive
[17] M. A. Khalighi and M. Uysal, “Survey on free space optical communi- headlamps,” Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev., vol. 41, pp. 29–41, Jan. 2015.
cation: A communication theory perspective,” IEEE Commun. Surveys [42] Traffic Control Equipment—Signal Heads, Eur. Commitee Standard
Tuts., vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 2231–2258, 4th Quart., 2014. EN 12368, Apr. 2006.
[18] D. Karunatilaka, F. Zafar, V. Kalavally, and R. Parthiban, “LED based [43] S. Kitano, S. Haruyama, and M. Nakagawa, “LED road illumi-
indoor visible light communications: State of the art,” IEEE Commun. nation communications system,” in Proc. 58th IEEE Veh. Technol.
Surveys Tuts., vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 1649–1678, 3rd Quart., 2015. Conf. (VTC Fall), vol. 5. Orlando, FL, USA, Oct. 2003, pp. 3346–3350.
[19] P. H. Pathak, X. Feng, P. Hu, and P. Mohapatra, “Visible light commu- [44] N. Kumar, “Smart and intelligent energy efficient public illumination
nication, networking, and sensing: A survey, potential and challenges,” system with ubiquitous communication for smart city,” in Proc. IEEE
IEEE Commun. Surveys Tuts., vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 2047–2077, 4th Int. Conf. Smart Struct. Syst. (ICSSS), Chennai, India, Mar. 2013,
Quart., 2015. pp. 152–157.
[20] D. C. O’Brien et al., “Visible light communications: Challenges and [45] M. Ergen, “Critical penetration for vehicular networks,” IEEE
possibilities,” in Proc. IEEE 19th Int. Symp. Pers. Indoor Mobile Radio Commun. Lett., vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 414–416, May 2010.
Commun. (PIMRC), Cannes, France, 2008, pp. 1–5. [46] IEEE Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area Networks—Part 15.7:
[21] D. C. O’Brien, “Visible light communications: Challenges and poten- Short-Range Wireless Optical Communication Using Visible Light,
tial,” in Proc. IEEE Photon. Conf. (PHO), Arlington, VA, USA, 2011, IEEE Standard 802.15.7-2011, pp. 1–309, Sep. 2011.
pp. 365–366. [47] A.-M. Cailean, B. Cagneau, L. Chassagne, M. Dimian, and V. Popa,
[22] A. Jovicic, J. Li, and T. Richardson, “Visible light communication: “Miller code usage in visible light communications under the PHY I
Opportunities, challenges and the path to market,” IEEE Commun. layer of the IEEE 802.15.7 standard,” in Proc. 10th Int. Conf.
Mag., vol. 51, no. 12, pp. 26–32, Dec. 2013. Commun. (COMM), Bucharest, Romania, May 2014, pp. 1–4.

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR VLC USAGE IN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS: SURVEY 2701

[48] A.-M. Cailean, B. Cagneau, L. Chassagne, V. Popa, and M. Dimian, [69] A. Cailean et al., “Visible light communications: Application to coop-
“Evaluation of the noise effects on visible light communications using eration between vehicles and road infrastructures,” in Proc. IEEE Intell.
Manchester and Miller coding,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Develop. Appl. Veh. Symp. (IV), Jun. 2012, pp. 1055–1059.
Syst. (DAS), Suceava, Romania, May 2014, pp. 85–89. [70] N. Lourenço, D. Terra, N. Kumar, L. N. Alves, and R. L. Aguiar,
[49] C. Quintana, J. Rabadan, J. Rufo, F. Delgado, and R. Perez-Jimenez, “Visible light communication system for outdoor applications,” in Proc.
“Time-hopping spread-spectrum system for wireless optical com- 8th Int. Symp. Commun. Syst. Netw. Digit. Signal Process. (CSNDSP),
munications,” IEEE Trans. Consum. Electron., vol. 55, no. 3, Poznañ, Poland, Jul. 2012, pp. 1–6.
pp. 1083–1088, Aug. 2009. [71] N. Kumar, N. Lourenço, D. Terra, L. N. Alves, and R. L. Aguiar,
[50] J. Kim, D. Lee, K.-D. Kim, and Y. Park, “Performance improvement “Visible light communications in intelligent transportation systems,”
in visible light communication by using spread spectrum coding,” in in Proc. IEEE Intell. Veh. Symp. (IV), Madrid, Spain, Jun. 2012,
Proc. 15th OptoElectron. Commun. Conf. (OECC), Sapporo, Japan, pp. 748–753.
2010, pp. 278–279. [72] D. Terra, N. Kumar, N. Lourenço, L. N. Alves, and L. A. Aguiar,
[51] S. Nishimoto et al., “High-speed transmission of overlay coding for “Design, development and performance analysis of DSSS-
road-to-vehicle visible light communication using LED array and based transceiver for VLC,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Comput.
high-speed camera,” in Proc. IEEE Globecom Wkshps (GC Wkshps), Tool (EUROCON), Lisbon, Portugal, Apr. 2011, pp. 1–4.
Anaheim, CA, USA, 2012, pp. 1234–1238. [73] A.-M. Cãilean, M. Dimian, V. Popa, L. Chassagne, and B. Cagneau,
[52] K. Cui, G. Chen, Z. Xu, and R. D. Roberts, “Experimental characteri- “Novel DSP receiver architecture for multi-channel visible light com-
zation of traffic light to vehicle VLC link performance,” in Proc. IEEE munications in automotive applications,” IEEE Sensors J., vol. 16,
GLOBECOM Wkshps (GC Wkshps), Dec. 2011, pp. 808–812. no. 10, pp. 3597–3602, May 2016.
[53] J. M. Kahn, W. J. Krause, and J. B. Carruthers, “Experimental char- [74] A.-M. Cailean, B. Cagneau, L. Chassagne, V. Popa, and M. Dimian,
acterization of non-directed indoor infrared channels,” IEEE Trans. “Design and performance evaluation of a DSP visible light com-
Commun., vol. 43, no. 234, pp. 1613–1623, Feb./Mar./Apr. 1995. munication receiver,” in Proc. IEEE 21st Symp. Commun. Veh.
[54] A. J. C. Moreira, R. T. Valadas, and A. M. de Oliveira Duarte, Technol. Benelux (SCVT), Delft, The Netherlands, Nov. 2014,
“Characterisation and modelling of artificial light interference in pp. 30–34.
optical wireless communication systems,” in Proc. 6th IEEE Int. [75] J. Baranda, P. Henarejos, and C. G. Gavrincea, “An SDR imple-
Symp. Wireless Merging Inf. Superhighway Pers. Indoor Mobile Radio mentation of a visible light communication system based on the
Commun. (PIMRC), Toronto, ON, Canada, 1995, pp. 326–331. IEEE 802.15.7 standard,” in Proc. 20th Int. Conf. Telecommun. (ICT),
[55] I. E. Lee, M. L. Sim, and F. W. L. Kung, “Performance enhance- May 2013, pp. 1–5.
ment of outdoor visible-light communication system using selective [76] A. Belle, M. Falcitelli, M. Petracca, and P. Pagano, “Development of
combining receiver,” IET Optoelectron., vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 30–39, IEEE802.15.7 based ITS services using low cost embedded systems,” in
Feb. 2009. Proc. 13th Int. Conf. ITS TeleCommun., Tampere, Finland, Nov. 2013,
[56] J. M. Kahn and J. R. Barry, “Wireless infrared communications,” Proc. pp. 419–425.
IEEE, vol. 85, no. 2, pp. 265–298, Feb. 1997. [77] “Vehicle safety communications project task 3 final report,” CAMP
[57] F. Hossain and Z. Afroze, “Eliminating the effect of fog attenuation Veh. Safety Commun. Consortium, Tech. Rep. DOTHS 809 859,
on FSO link by multiple TX/RX system with travelling wave semicon- Mar. 2005.
ductor optical amplifier,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Adv. Elect. Eng. (ICAEE),
[78] IEEE Standard for Information Technology—Local and Metropolitan
Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dec. 2013, pp. 267–272.
Area Networks—Specific Requirements—Part 11: Wireless LAN
[58] M. Ijaz, Z. Ghassemlooy, H. Le Minh, S. Rajbhandari, and J. Perez,
Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY)
“Analysis of fog and smoke attenuation in a free space optical com-
Specifications Amendment 6: Wireless Access in Vehicular
munication link under controlled laboratory conditions,” in Proc.
Environments, IEEE Standard 802.11p, Jul. 2010.
Int. Wkshp Opt. Wireless Commun. (IWOW), Pisa, Italy, Oct. 2012,
[79] S. Eichler, “Performance evaluation of the IEEE 802.11p WAVE
pp. 1–3.
communication standard,” in Proc. 66th IEEE Veh. Technol. Conf.,
[59] T. Saito, S. Haruyama, and M. Nakagawa, “A new tracking method
Baltimore, MD, USA, 2007, pp. 2199–2203.
using image sensor and photo diode for visible light road-to-
[80] K. Bilstrup, E. Uhlemann, E. Ström, and U. Bilstrup, “On the abil-
vehicle communication,” in Proc. 10th Int. Conf. Adv. Commun.
ity of the 802.11p MAC method and STDMA to support real-time
Technol. (ICACT), Feb. 2008, pp. 673–678.
vehicle-to-vehicle communication,” EURASIP J. Wireless Commun.
[60] S. Okada et al., “On-vehicle receiver for distant visible light road-to-
Netw., vol. 2009, Dec. 2009, Art. no. 902414.
vehicle communication,” in Proc. IEEE Intell. Veh. Symp. (IV), Xi’an,
China, Jun. 2009, pp. 1033–1038. [81] Y. Yao, L. Rao, and X. Liu, “Performance and reliability analysis of
[61] C. B. Liu, B. Sadeghi, and E. W. Knightly, “Enabling vehicular vis- IEEE 802.11p safety communication in a highway environment,” IEEE
ible light communication (V2LC) networks,” in Proc. ACM VANET, Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 62, no. 9, pp. 4198–4212, Nov. 2013.
Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2011, pp. 41–50. [82] K. Karlsson, C. Bergenhem, and E. Hedin, “Field measurements
[62] A.-M. Cailean, B. Cagneau, L. Chassagne, M. Dimian, and V. Popa, of IEEE 802.11p communication in NLOS environments for a pla-
“Novel receiver sensor for visible light communications in automo- tooning application,” in Proc. IEEE Veh. Technol. Conf. (VTC Fall),
tive applications,” IEEE Sensors J., vol. 15, no. 8, pp. 4632–4639, Quebec City, QC, Canada, Sep. 2012, pp. 1–5.
Aug. 2015. [83] R. Atallah, M. Khabbaz, and C. Assi, “Multihop V2I communications:
[63] D.-R. Kim, S.-H. Yang, H.-S. Kim, Y.-H. Son, and S.-K. Han, A feasibility study, modeling, and performance analysis,” IEEE Trans.
“Outdoor visible light communication for inter-vehicle communica- Veh. Technol., vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 2801–2810, Mar. 2017.
tion using controller area network,” in Proc. 4th Int. Conf. Commun. [84] I. Takai et al., “LED and CMOS image sensor based optical wireless
Electron. (ICCE), Hue, Vietnam, Aug. 2012, pp. 31–34. communication system for automotive applications,” IEEE Photon. J.,
[64] R. Corsini et al., “Free space optical communication in the visi- vol. 5, no. 5, Oct. 2013, Art. no. 6801418.
ble bandwidth for V2V safety critical protocols,” in Proc. 8th Int. [85] I. Takai et al., “Optical vehicle-to-vehicle communication system using
Conf. Wireless Commu. Mobile Comput. (IWCMC), Limassol, Cyprus, LED transmitter and camera receiver,” IEEE Photon. J., vol. 6, no. 5,
Aug. 2012, pp. 1097–1102. Oct. 2014, Art. no. 7902513.
[65] S.-M. Kim and S.-M. Kim, “Performance improvement of visible [86] T. Yamazato et al., “Image-sensor-based visible light communication
light communications using optical beamforming,” in Proc. 5th Int. for automotive applications,” IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 52, no. 7,
Conf. Ubiquitous Future Netw. (ICUFN), Danang, Vietnam, Jul. 2013, pp. 88–97, Jul. 2014.
pp. 362–365. [87] Y. Goto et al., “A new automotive VLC system using optical com-
[66] Y. H. Kim, W. A. Cahyadi, and Y. H. Chung, “Experimental demonstra- munication image sensor,” IEEE Photon. J., vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 1–17,
tion of VLC-based vehicle-to-vehicle communications under fog con- Jun. 2016.
ditions,” IEEE Photon. J., vol. 7, no. 6, Dec. 2015, Art. no. 7905309. [88] N. Kumar, “Visible light communication for road safety applications,”
[67] U. Kurokawa, B. I. Choi, and C.-C. Chang, “Filter-based miniature Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Electron. Telecommun. Informat., Univ. at
spectrometers: Spectrum reconstruction using adaptive regularization,” Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal, 2011.
IEEE Sensors J., vol. 11, no. 7, pp. 1556–1563, Jul. 2011. [89] A.-M. Cailean et al., “Visible light communications cooperative archi-
[68] C.-C. Chang, Y.-J. Su, U. Kurokawa, and B. I. Choi, “Interference tecture for the intelligent transportation system,” in Proc. IEEE 20th
rejection using filter-based sensor array in VLC systems,” IEEE Symp. Commun. Veh. Technol. Benelux (SCVT), Namur, Belgium,
Sensors J., vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 1025–1032, May 2012. Nov. 2013, pp. 1–5.

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
2702 IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 19, NO. 4, FOURTH QUARTER 2017

[90] W.-Y. Shieh, W.-H. Lee, S.-L. Tung, B.-S. Jeng, and C.-H. Liu, [112] M. Yasir, S.-W. Ho, and B. N. Vellambi, “Indoor position tracking
“Analysis of the optimum configuration of roadside units and onboard using multiple optical receivers,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 34, no. 4,
units in dedicated short-range communication systems,” IEEE Trans. pp. 1166–1176, Feb. 15, 2016.
Intell. Transp. Syst., vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 565–571, Dec. 2006. [113] T.-H. Do and M. Yoo, “Potentialities and challenges of VLC based
[91] N. Kumar, L. N. Alves, and R. L. Aguiar, “Design and analysis of outdoor positioning,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Inf. Netw. (ICOIN), Siem Reap,
the basic parameters for traffic information transmission using VLC,” Cambodia, 2015, pp. 474–477.
in Proc. 1st Int. Conf. Wireless Commun. Veh. Technol. Inf. Theory [114] R. Roberts, P. Gopalakrishnan, and S. Rathi, “Visible light position-
Aerosp. Electron. Syst. Technol. (VITAE), Aalborg, Denmark, 2009, ing: Automotive use case,” in Proc. IEEE Veh. Netw. Conf. (VNC),
pp. 798–802. Jersey City, NJ, USA, Dec. 2010, pp. 309–314.
[92] K. Siddiqi, A. D. Raza, and S. S. Muhammad, “Visible light com- [115] S.-H. Yu, O. Shih, H.-M. Tsai, N. Wisitpongphan, and R. D. Roberts,
munication for V2V intelligent transport system,” in Proc. Int. Conf. “Smart automotive lighting for vehicle safety,” IEEE Commun. Mag.,
Broadband Commun. Next Gener. Netw. Multimedia Appl. (CoBCom), vol. 51, no. 12, pp. 50–59, Dec. 2013.
Graz, Austria, 2016, pp. 1–4. [116] B. Béchadergue, L. Chassagne, and H. Guan, “Visible light phase-shift
[93] J. Jeong et al., “Receiver angle control in an infrastructure-to-car visible rangefinder for platooning applications,” in Proc. 19th IEEE Int. Conf.
light communication link,” in Proc. IEEE Region 10 Conf. (TENCON), Intell. Transp. Syst., Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2016, pp. 2462–2468.
2016, pp. 1957–1960. [117] C.-Y. Wen, R. D. Morris, and W. A. Sethares, “Distance estimation
[94] A. Agarwal and T. D. C. Little, “Role of directional wireless commu- using bidirectional communications without synchronous clocking,”
nication in vehicular networks,” in Proc. IEEE Intell. Veh. Symp. (IV), IEEE Trans. Signal Process., vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 1927–1939, May 2007.
Jun. 2010, pp. 688–693. [118] J. H. Y. Nah, R. Parthiban, and M. H. Jaward, “Visible light communi-
[95] Z. Cui, P. Yue, and Y. Ji, “Study of cooperative diversity scheme cations localization using TDOA-based coherent heterodyne detection,”
based on visible light communication in VANETs,” in Proc. Int. in Proc. IEEE 4th Int. Conf. Photon. (ICP), Malacca, Malaysia, 2013,
Conf. Comput. Inf. Telecommun. Syst. (CITS), Kunming, China, 2016, pp. 247–249.
pp. 1–5. [119] B. Bai, G. Chen, Z. Xu, and Y. Fan, “Visible light positioning based
[96] M. Y. Abualhoul, P. Merdrignac, O. Shagdar, and F. Nashashibi, “Study on LED traffic light and photodiode,” in Proc. IEEE Veh. Technol.
and evaluation of laser-based perception and light communication for Conf. (VTC Fall), San Francisco, CA, USA, Sep. 2011, pp. 1–5.
a platoon of autonomous vehicles,” in Proc. IEEE 19th Int. Conf. Intell. [120] E. Gonendik and S. Gezici, “Fundamental limits on RSS based range
Transp. Syst. (ITSC), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2016, pp. 1798–1804. estimation in visible light positioning systems,” IEEE Commun. Lett.,
[97] M. M. Rahman, L. Bobadilla, and B. Rapp, “Establishing line-of-sight vol. 19, no. 12, pp. 2138–2141, Dec. 2015.
communication via autonomous relay vehicles,” in Proc. IEEE Mil. [121] A. J. Suzuki and K. Mizui, “Laser radar and visible light in a bidi-
Commun. Conf. (MILCOM), Baltimore, MD, USA, 2016, pp. 642–647. rectional V2V communication and ranging system,” in Proc. IEEE
[98] J. B. Carruthers and J. M. Kahn, “Angle diversity for nondirected wire- Int. Conf. Veh. Electron. Safety (ICVES), Yokohama, Japan, 2015,
less infrared communication,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 19–24.
pp. 960–969, Jun. 2000.
[122] N. Sasaki, N. Iijima, and D. Uchiyama, “Development of ranging
[99] Z. Chen, N. Serafimovski, and H. Haas, “Angle diversity for an indoor
method for inter-vehicle distance using visible light communication
cellular visible light communication system,” in Proc. IEEE 79th Veh.
and image processing,” in Proc. 15th Int. Conf. Control Autom.
Technol. Conf. (VTC Spring), Seoul, South Korea, May 2014, pp. 1–5.
Syst. (ICCAS), Busan, South Korea, 2015, pp. 666–670.
[100] C. He, T. Q. Wang, and J. Armstrong, “MIMO optical wireless receiver
[123] T. Yamazato et al., “Range estimation scheme for integrated
using photodetectors with different fields of view,” in Proc. IEEE 81st
I2V-VLC using a high-speed image sensor,” in Proc. IEEE Int.
Veh. Technol. Conf. (VTC Spring), Glasgow, U.K., May 2015, pp. 1–5.
Conf. Commun. Wkshps (ICC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2016,
[101] C. He, T. Q. Wang, and J. Armstrong, “Performance of optical receivers
pp. 326–330.
using photodetectors with different fields of view in a MIMO ACO-
OFDM system,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 33, no. 23, pp. 4957–4967, [124] D. Tsonev et al., “A 3-Gb/s single-LED OFDM-based wireless VLC
Dec. 1, 2015. link using a gallium nitride μLED,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett.,
[102] A.-M. Cailean and M. Dimian, “Toward environmental-adaptive visible vol. 26, no. 7, pp. 637–640, Apr. 1, 2014.
light communications receivers for automotive applications: A review,” [125] J. Vucic, C. Kottke, S. Nerreter, K.-D. Langer, and J. W. Walewski,
IEEE Sensors J., vol. 16, no. 9, pp. 2803–2811, May 2016. “513 Mbit/s visible light communications link based on DMT-
[103] M. Y. Abualhoul, M. Marouf, O. Shag, and F. Nashashibi, “Enhancing modulation of a white LED,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 28, no. 24,
the field of view limitation of visible light communication-based pla- pp. 3512–3518, Dec. 15, 2010.
toon,” in Proc. IEEE 6th Int. Symp. Wireless Veh. Commun. (WiVeC), [126] M. Uysal, Z. Ghassemlooy, A. Bekkali, A. Kadri, and H. Menouar,
Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2014, pp. 1–5. “Visible light communication for vehicular networking: Performance
[104] S. Savasta, M. Pini, and G. Marfia, “Performance assessment of study of a V2V system using a measured headlamp beam pat-
a commercial GPS receiver for networking applications,” in Proc. 5th tern model,” IEEE Veh. Technol. Mag., vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 45–53,
IEEE Consum. Commun. Netw. Conf., Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2008, Dec. 2015.
pp. 613–617. [127] B. Fahs, A. J. Chowdhury, and M. M. Hella, “A 12-m 2.5-Gb/s lighting
[105] M. Goppelt, H.-L. Blöcher, and W. Menzel, “Automotive radar— compatible integrated receiver for OOK visible light communication
Investigation of mutual interference mechanisms,” Adv. Radio Sci., links,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 34, no. 16, pp. 3768–3775, Aug. 15,
vol. 8, pp. 55–60, Sep. 2010. 2016.
[106] T. Yamazato and S. Haruyama, “Image sensor based visible light com- [128] D. Takase and T. Ohtsuki, “Optical wireless MIMO com-
munication and its application to pose, position, and range estimations,” munications (OMIMO),” in Proc IEEE Glob. Telecommun.
IEICE Trans. Commun., vol. E97-B, no. 9, pp. 1759–1765, Sep. 2014. Conf. (GLOBECOM), vol. 2. Dallas, TX, USA, 2004, pp. 928–932.
[107] G. Kim, J. Eom, and Y. Park, “An experiment of mutual interference [129] S. Jivkova, B. A. Hristov, and M. Kavehrad, “Power-efficient multispot-
between automotive LIDAR scanners,” in Proc. 12th Int. Conf. Inf. diffuse multiple-input-multiple-output approach to broad-band optical
Technol. New Gener. (ITNG), Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2015, pp. 680–685. wireless communications,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 53, no. 3,
[108] G. Kim, J. Eom, and Y. Park, “Investigation on the occurrence pp. 882–889, May 2004.
of mutual interference between pulsed terrestrial LIDAR scanners,” [130] S. Hranilovic and F. R. Kschischang, “A pixelated MIMO wireless
in Proc. IEEE Intell. Veh. Symp. (IV), Seoul, South Korea, 2015, optical communication system,” IEEE J. Sel. Topics Quantum Electron.,
pp. 437–442. vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 859–874, Jul./Aug. 2006.
[109] M. Yoshino, S. Haruyama, and M. Nakagawa, “High-accuracy posi- [131] A. H. Azhar, T. Tran, and D. O’Brien, “A gigabit/s indoor wireless
tioning system using visible LED lights and image sensor,” in Proc. transmission using MIMO-OFDM visible-light communications,” IEEE
IEEE Radio Wireless Symp., Orlando, FL, USA, 2008, pp. 439–442. Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 171–174, Jan. 15, 2013.
[110] S.-H. Yang et al., “Indoor three-dimensional location estimation based [132] T. Fath and H. Haas, “Performance comparison of MIMO techniques
on LED visible light communication,” Electron. Lett., vol. 49, no. 1, for optical wireless communications in indoor environments,” IEEE
pp. 54–56, Jan. 2013. Trans. Commun., vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 733–742, Feb. 2013.
[111] S.-H. Yang, H.-S. Kim, Y.-H. Son, and S.-K. Han, “Three-dimensional [133] S. P. Alaka, T. L. Narasimhan, and A. Chockalingam, “Generalized
visible light indoor localization using AOA and RSS with multiple spatial modulation in indoor wireless visible light communication,” in
optical receivers,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 32, no. 14, pp. 2480–2485, Proc. IEEE Global Commun. Conf. (GLOBECOM), San Diego, CA,
Jul. 15, 2014. USA, 2015, pp. 1–7.

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
CĂILEAN AND DIMIAN: CURRENT CHALLENGES FOR VLC USAGE IN VEHICLE APPLICATIONS: SURVEY 2703

[134] R. Tejaswi, T. L. Narasimhan, and A. Chockalingam, “Quad-LED com- [156] P. A. Haigh, Z. Ghassemlooy, S. Rajbhandari, and I. Papakonstantinou,
plex modulation (QCM) for visible light wireless communication,” in “Visible light communications using organic light emitting diodes,”
Proc. IEEE WCNC Wkshps, Doha, Qatar, Apr. 2016, pp. 18–23. IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 51, no. 8, pp. 148–154, Aug. 2013.
[135] S. Iwasaki, M. Wada, T. Endo, T. Fujii, and M. Tanimoto, “Basic exper- [157] P. A. Haigh et al., “Visible light communications: Real time 10 Mb/s
iments on parallel wireless optical communication for ITS,” in Proc. link with a low bandwidth polymer light-emitting diode,” Opt. Exp.,
IEEE Intell. Veh. Symp., Istanbul, Turkey, 2007, pp. 321–326. vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 2830–2838, 2014.
[136] S. Nishimoto et al., “Overlay coding for road-to-vehicle visible light [158] Visible Light Communications Association. Accessed on Mar. 20, 2017.
communication using LED array and high-speed camera,” in Proc. 14th [Online]. Available: http://vlca.net/standard/
Int. IEEE Conf. Intell. Transp. Syst. (ITSC), Washington, DC, USA, [159] R. D. Roberts, S. Rajagopal, and S.-K. Lim, “IEEE 802.15.7 physical
2011, pp. 1704–1709. layer summary,” in Proc. IEEE GLOBECOM Wkshps (GC Wkshps),
[137] A. M. Khalid, G. Cossu, R. Corsini, M. Presi, and E. Ciaramella, Houston, TX, USA, 2011, pp. 772–776.
“Demonstrating a hybrid radio-over-fibre and visible light commu- [160] S. Rajagopal, R. D. Roberts, and S.-K. Lim, “IEEE 802.15.7 visi-
nication system,” Electron. Lett., vol. 47, no. 20, pp. 1136–1137, ble light communication: Modulation schemes and dimming support,”
Sep. 2011. IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 72–82, Mar. 2012.
[138] Y. Wang and H. Haas, “Dynamic load balancing with handover in [161] A. C. Boucouvalas, P. Chatzimisios, Z. Ghassemlooy, M. Uysal, and
hybrid Li-Fi and Wi-Fi networks,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 33, no. 22, K. Yiannopoulos, “Standards for indoor optical wireless communica-
pp. 4671–4682, Nov. 15, 2015. tions,” IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 24–31, Mar. 2015.
[162] J. Vučić, C. Kottke, K. Habel, and K.-D. Langer, “803 Mbit/s visible
[139] D. A. Basnayaka and H. Haas, “Hybrid RF and VLC systems:
light WDM link based on DMT modulation of a single RGB LED
Improving user data rate performance of VLC systems,” in Proc. IEEE
luminary,” in Proc. Opt. Fiber Commun. Conf. Expo. Nat. Fiber Opt.
81st Veh. Technol. Conf. (VTC Spring), Glasgow, U.K., 2015, pp. 1–5.
Eng. Conf., Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2011, pp. 1–3.
[140] M. Y. Abualhoul, M. Marouf, O. Shagdar, and F. Nashashibi, [163] T. Kubo et al., “A high-speed visible light indoor network employing
“Platooning control using visible light communications: A feasibil- a short pulse modulation and a QPM-LN module,” in Proc. Opt. Fiber
ity study,” in Proc. 16th Int. IEEE Conf. Intell. Transp. Syst. (ITSC), Commun. Conf. Expo. Nat. Fiber Opt. Eng. Conf., Los Angeles, CA,
The Hague, The Netherlands, 2013, pp. 1535–1540. USA, 2011, pp. 1–3.
[141] M. Y. Abualhoul, O. Shagdar, and F. Nashashibi, “Visible light [164] A. M. Khalid, G. Cossu, R. Corsini, P. Choudhury, and E. Ciaramella,
inter-vehicle communication for platooning of autonomous vehicles,” “1-Gb/s transmission over a phosphorescent white LED by using rate-
in Proc. IEEE Intell. Veh. Symp. (IV), Gothenburg, Sweden, 2016, adaptive discrete multitone modulation,” IEEE Photon. J., vol. 4, no. 5,
pp. 508–513. pp. 1465–1473, Oct. 2012.
[142] S. Ucar, S. C. Ergen, and O. Ozkasap, “Security vulnerabilities of [165] A.-M. Cailean and M. Dimian, “Impact of IEEE 802.15.7 standard on
IEEE 802.11p and visible light communication based platoon,” in Proc. visible light communications usage in automotive applications,” IEEE
IEEE Veh. Netw. Conf. (VNC), Columbus, OH, USA, 2016, pp. 1–4. Commun. Mag., vol. 55, no. 4, pp. 169–175, Apr. 2017.
[143] S. Ishihara, R. V. Rabsatt, and M. Gerla, “Improving reliability of [166] V. Jungnickel et al., “A European view on the next generation opti-
platooning control messages using radio and visible light hybrid com- cal wireless communication standard,” in Proc. IEEE Conf. Stand.
munication,” in Proc. IEEE Veh. Netw. Conf. (VNC), Kyoto, Japan, Commun. Netw. (CSCN), Tokyo, Japan, 2015, pp. 106–111.
2015, pp. 96–103. [167] M. Uysal, F. Miramirkhani, O. Narmanlioglu, T. Baykas, and
[144] M. Segata, R. L. Cigno, H.-M. M. Tsai, and F. Dressler, “On platooning E. Panayirci, “IEEE 802.15.7r1 reference channel models for vis-
control using IEEE 802.11p in conjunction with visible light commu- ible light communications,” IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 55, no. 1,
nications,” in Proc. 12th Annu. Conf. Wireless On-Demand Netw. Syst. pp. 212–217, Jan. 2017.
Services (WONS), Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, 2016, pp. 1–4. [168] J. Armstrong, Y. A. Sekercioglu, and A. Neild, “Visible light posi-
[145] A. Bazzi, B. M. Masini, A. Zanella, and A. Calisti, “Visible light tioning: A roadmap for international standardization,” IEEE Commun.
communications in vehicular networks for cellular offloading,” in Mag., vol. 51, no. 12, pp. 68–73, Dec. 2013.
Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Commun. Wkshp (ICCW), London, U.K., 2015,
pp. 1416–1421.
[146] P. Fernandes and U. Nunes, “Platooning with DSRC-based IVC-
enabled autonomous vehicles: Adding infrared communications for
IVC reliability improvement,” in Proc. IEEE Intell. Veh. Symp. (IV),
Alin-Mihai Căilean received the B.S. degree in
Jun. 2012, pp. 517–522.
applied electronics engineering and the M.S. degree
[147] J. Liu, P. W. C. Chan, D. W. K. Ng, E. S. Lo, and S. Shimamoto, in computer and communication networks from the
“Hybrid visible light communications in intelligent transportation Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Romania,
systems with position based services,” in Proc. IEEE Globecom in 2009 and 2011, respectively, and the Ph.D.
Wkshps (GC Wkshps), Anaheim, CA, USA, 2012, pp. 1254–1259. degree, after a joint program, with the University of
[148] P. R. Lewis et al., “Architectural aspects of self-aware and self- Versailles St. Quentin en Yvelines, France, and the
expressive computing systems: From psychology to engineering,” University of Suceava. He is currently a Researcher
Computer, vol. 48, no. 8, pp. 62–70, Aug. 2015. with the University of Suceava. His main research
[149] S. Kounev, N. Huber, F. Brosig, and X. Zhu, “A model-based approach area is related to visible light communications, wire-
to designing self-aware IT systems and infrastructures,” Computer, less sensors, and vehicle safety applications. He has
vol. 49, no. 7, pp. 53–61, Jul. 2016. over six years of experience in working on VLC technology and he has
[150] F. Chiti, R. Fantacci, M. Loreti, and R. Pugliese, “Context-aware authored important articles and conference papers in this domain.
wireless mobile autonomic computing and communications: Research
trends and emerging applications,” IEEE Wireless Commun., vol. 23,
no. 2, pp. 86–92, Apr. 2016.
[151] F. Miramirkhani, O. Narmanlioglu, M. Uysal, and E. Panayirci,
“A mobile channel model for VLC and application to adaptive Mihai Dimian received the B.S. degrees in
system design,” IEEE Commun. Lett., vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 1035–1038, mathematics in 1997 and in physics in 2001 and
May 2017. the M.S. degree in dynamical systems from the
[152] A. Yesilkaya, O. Karatalay, A. S. Ogrenci, and E. Panayirci, “Channel University of Iassy, Romania, and the Ph.D. degree
estimation for visible light communications using neural networks,” in in electrical engineering from the University of
Proc. Int. Joint Conf. Neural Netw. (IJCNN), Vancouver, BC, Canada, Maryland, College Park, USA, in 2005. He was a
2016, pp. 320–325. Post-Doctoral Researcher with Max Planck Institute,
[153] R. Tessier, K. Pocek, and A. DeHon, “Reconfigurable computing Leipzig, Germany. He is an Associate Professor
architectures,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 103, no. 3, pp. 332–354, Mar. 2015. with Howard University, Washington, DC, USA,
[154] A. DeHon, “Fundamental underpinnings of reconfigurable computing and a Professor with the University of Suceava,
architectures,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 103, no. 3, pp. 355–378, Mar. 2015. Romania. His research interests are focused on fluc-
[155] J. Kang and I. Lim, “OLED display technology tracker,” HIS Technol., tuations and noise in nanoelectronics and optoelectronics, stochastic aspects
Hong Kong, Tech. Rep. Q4, Feb. 2016. of hysteresis, multiscale analysis, and modeling.

Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III MADRID. Downloaded on February 10,2022 at 16:13:50 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.