Using consumer LED light bulbs for low-cost visible light communication systems.

ABSTRACTLED-to-LED Visible Light Communication (VLC) based on Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and microcontrollers provide a foundation for networking using visible light as communication medium. We describe a low-complexity smart LED light bulb prototype that is based on existing consumer light bulbs and hence can be replicated with minimal effort. The protocol software employed for these smart light bulbs is consistent with earlier VLC protocols originally developed for communication between single LEDs. Using VLC with consumer light bulbs leads to improvements in communication range, field of view, and throughput compared to existing VLC communication systems based on single LEDs. VLC-enabled light bulbs are an important contribution to the vision of all-optical networks, i.e., a multi-hop network of light bulbs in which light bulbs deployed inside buildings and communicate with each other using free space optics only.