A Fixed-Scale Pixelated MIMO Visible Light Communication System

A pixelated MIMO wireless optical communication system is introduced, which transmits a series of time-varying coded images that can be received and decoded by commercial digital cameras. The system exploits the bokeh effect to obtain fixed-scale images at all link distances by placing a convex lens in front of the transmitter array at its focal length and focusing the receiver at infinity. This spatial-angular mapping simplifies the receiver structure requiring no re-focusing as the receiver moves. As an additional benefit, this mapping can also be exploited to provide location information to the receiver. The channel model is measured and modeled and rateless codes are applied to track the truncation of receive images for various link ranges and angular offsets. A proof-of-concept optical communication system is implemented with an LCD display and a high-speed CMOS camera.