Minimal Noise Variance Decoder for Uncoordinated Multiple Access in VLC

In a visible light communications system (VLC), light sources are responsible for both illumination, communications and positioning. These light sources inevitably interfere each others at the receiver. To retain the appealing advantage that VLC systems can reuse existing lighting infrastructure, using an extra network to control or synchronize the light sources should be avoided. This paper proposes an uncoordinated multiple access scheme for VLC systems with positioning capability. The proposed scheme does not require a central unit to coordinate the transmission of the transmitters. Transmitters can be asynchronous with one another and with the receiver. Each transmitter is allocated a unique codeword with $L$ chips for a system with up to $\frac{L-1}{2}$ transmitters where $L$ is prime. Due to the linear growth in complexity with respect to number of transmitters, our proposed scheme is feasible for systems with large numbers of transmitters. Our novel decoder can minimize the effect of additive Gaussian noise at the receiver side. Simulation results show that the proposed decoder outperforms zero-forcing decoder.