Experimental Demonstration of a 1024-QAM Optical Camera Communication System

Abstract

In this letter, we experimentally demonstrate a 1024-quadrature-amplitude-modulation (QAM) optical camera communications (OCC) system using a dual light-emitting diode (LED) and a commercial digital single-lens reflex camera. An undersampled QAM subcarrier modulation (UQAMSM) is proposed to support a high-efficiency and non-flickering OCC system. Owing to the built-in gamma correction function of the camera, pre- and post-compensation techniques are successfully applied to compensate for the non-linear impairment. A dedicated framing structure is also designed to support the proposed UQAMSM and compensation techniques. The experimental results show that this system is able to achieve a data rate of 500 b/s using a dual LED and a 50 ft/s commercial camera over a transmission span of 1.5 m, which is suitable for the transmission and reception of location-based information.