Pulse Dual Slope Modulation for VLC

In the field of visible light communication (VLC), light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are used for transmitting data via visible light. In this study, we analyze pulse dual slope modulation (PDSM) as a means of delivering information in VLC. PDSM involves the modulation of symmetrical slope pulses to encode binary 0s and 1s, and owing to the moderately increasing and decreasing pulse shapes that are created, this method enables more spectral efficiency than the variable pulse position modulation (VPPM) technique currently adopted in IEEE 802.15.7. In particular, PDSM allows for the avoidance of intra-frame flicker by providing idle pulses in a spectrum-efficient way. A simple detection scheme is proposed for PDSMsignals, and its bit error rate (BER) is analyzed mathematically at varying slopes to validate the process through simulation. The BER performance of PDSM detection using dual sampling is compared to the performances of PDSM and VPPM using correlation detection. It is found that, when the probability of idle pulse transmission is less than 0.08 and higher than 0, the BER of dual sampling PDSM is lower than that of PDSM using correlation detection over the entire light intensity range.