An LED Detection Algorithm for VLC System Based on an LED Matrix and a Smartphone Camera

VLC is a rapidly advancing research topic. Many researchers in the field of information and communication technology are working to develop and improve visible light communication methods and approaches. In this paper, we propose a new LED Detection Algorithm, named LED-DA, to realize a visible light communication system using an LED matrix and a smartphone camera. We describe the proposed system, discuss its design, and highlight the features of its transmitter and receiver. Our experiment entails transmitting data via an LED matrix, which is controlled by a Raspberry Pi card and receiving it by a smartphone camera, which is connected to MATLAB via an android application for processing the acquired frames. To transmit this data, we use OOK modulation, and for good reception, we use a novel algorithm in MATLAB for demodulating the received frame and localization of the light LED. At a distance of 40–60 cm, we were able to obtain a transmission rate of 56 bits per frame with a BER less than 10–2. The data rate may be increased by increasing the LED array size and the frame rate of the smartphone camera.