Image-sensor-based visible light communication for automotive applications

TLDR

Previous work has shown that radio‑based V2I and V2V improve automotive safety, but this article highlights image‑sensor‑based VLC’s unique characteristics, notably its line‑of‑sight operation and the dual role of the image sensor in both VLC and vehicle‑safety image processing. The study introduces image‑sensor‑based visible light communication (VLC) for automotive use, specifically V2I‑VLC and V2V‑VLC, and outlines two ongoing projects exploring these technologies. The authors implement V2I‑VLC with an LED traffic‑light transmitter and a high‑frame‑rate CMOS camera receiver, and develop a new high‑speed CMOS sensor for V2V‑VLC, demonstrating feasibility in field trials. Field trials confirmed real‑time audio transmission over V2I‑VLC and achieved 10 Mb/s data rates with simultaneous image and vehicle‑data reception in V2V‑VLC.

Abstract

The present article introduces VLC for automotive applications using an image sensor. In particular, V2I-VLC and V2V-VLC are presented. While previous studies have documented the effectiveness of V2I and V2V communication using radio technology in terms of improving automotive safety, in the present article, we identify characteristics unique to image-sensor-based VLC as compared to radio wave technology. The two primary advantages of a VLC system are its line-of-sight feature and an image sensor that not only provides VLC functions, but also the potential vehicle safety applications made possible by image and video processing. Herein, we present two ongoing image-sensor-based V2I-VLC and V2VVLC projects. In the first, a transmitter using an LED array (which is assumed to be an LED traffic light) and a receiver using a high-framerate CMOS image sensor camera is introduced as a potential V2I-VLC system. For this system, real-time transmission of the audio signal has been confirmed through a field trial. In the second project, we introduce a newly developed CMOS image sensor capable of receiving highspeed optical signals and demonstrate its effectiveness through a V2V communication field trial. In experiments, due to the high-speed signal reception capability of the camera receiver using the developed image sensor, a data transmission rate of 10 Mb/s has been achieved, and image (320 × 240, color) reception has been confirmed together with simultaneous reception of various internal vehicle data, such as vehicle ID and speed.