International Conference on Emerging Technologies for Communications (ICETC)
2023年12月
In this study, we propose the 1-bit ADC receiver that performs frequency conversion in the digital domain to simplify the circuitry in the receiver and reduce power consumption. Then, we evaluate the SNR vs. BER of the 1-bit ADC receiver we propose. In the proposed receiver, the average of the 1-bit ADC outputs in parallel is taken, the received signal is restored, and the baseband signal is demodulated by multiplying the restored received signal by the carrier wave.
R. Huang, T. Yamazato, M. Kinoshita, H. Okada, S. Arai, K. Kamakura, T. Yendo, T. Fujii
An essential issue in image sensor communication (ISC) is reliable and high-speed data transmission. In order to increase the data rate, this study uses pulse-width modulation (PWM). However, the symbol decision for PWM will become challenging with increasing numbers of luminance levels because of pixel saturation. In this study, we mitigate the pixel saturation problem by achieving high dynamic range (HDR) using two high-speed image sensors with varied exposure settings. Furthermore, we proposed HDR combining for signal demodulation. The field trial experiment results show that a throughput of higher than 87.5 kbps within the communication distance of 50 m can be achieved.
This paper proposes an image sensor communication (ISC) system based on light trails using rotary LEDs. The light trail refers to an optical phenomenon where light appears elongated and forms a trajectory due to the movement of luminous objects. In this study, we developed a propeller LED transmitter (P-Tx) that rotates LEDs with a propeller to generate and transmit light trail signals. According to the LED's rotation radius, the proposed system segments light trails to achieve high-capacity data transmission at short distances and high-trust transmission at long distances. In addition, we perform the rotation coordinates system conversion for the captured light trails to accurately and simply detect the signal LEDs' coordinates. We experimentally evaluate the proposed system's communication performance and data rate. The experimental results demonstrate that our system is capable of meeting communication requirements at various distances and exhibits significant potential in enhancing the data transmission rate of ISC.
This paper focuses on image sensor communication (ISC) using cameras to receive wireless signals transmitted by visible lights. We summarize the technical principles of ISC from the perspective of transmitting devices. An introduction to the development and applications of ISC was provided, starting with the history of image sensors and visible light communication (VLC). Moreover, the communication mechanism of ISC using complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) sensors is explained in this paper. Specifically, we investigate studies using an optical communication image sensor and the rolling shutter technique for high-speed ISC. Further, we highlight three distinctive transmitting devices in ISC: a LED array, rotating LEDs, and displays, and explain them in terms of structure and signal transmission methods. In particular, we present the parallel transmission of LED arrays and their application in traffic systems and introduce an optical flow-based signal transmission method using rotating LEDs. In addition, two visual transmission techniques in displays-based-ISC using brightness-difference and high-frequency flashing are introduced, respectively. This paper intuitively explains these ISC techniques and reveals ISC's high versatility.
S. Kamiya, Z. Tang, T. Yamazato, M. Kinoshita, K. Kamakura, S. Arai, T. Yendo, T. Fujii
This paper presents the successful reception of visible light communication (VLC) signals, transmitted from an LED array, by an image sensor that utilizes a rolling shutter while driving at 40 km/h. The rolling shutter image sensors used in commercial cameras, such as those found in smartphones and dashcams, capture images line by line at a fast rate, allowing for VLC signal reception in vehicular environments. By analyzing the relationship between the signal reception rate for each line and the frame rate, we demonstrate that parallel VLC signals transmitted from the LED array can be received even while in motion. Notably, to our knowledge, this is the first time that an automobile moving at 40 km/h has successfully received a VLC signal.
M. Hattori, A. Tsujii, T. Kasashima, H. Hatano, T. Yamazato
This paper proposes MAP estimation using two temporally consecutive data using signals from eight ultrasonic sensors forming a linear array. First, we estimate the distance to the obstacle from the time difference between the eight received signals. Then, assuming that the ranging error follows a Gaussian distribution and that each of the eight ranging values is independent, we can get the existence probability of the obstacle’s position by a pair of two obtained distances. Finally, we estimate the position of the obstacle by multiplying 28 (8C2) existence probabilities obtained. The conventional method estimates the position of an obstacle by the above procedure. However, the estimation accuracy in the angular direction was poor, resulting in the spread of the existence probability in the horizontal direction. In the proposed MAP estimation using two temporally consecutive data, we obtain the existence probability of an obstacle by the procedure shown above, and then use it as a prior probability of the obstacle’s estimated position. Furthermore, we recursively perform the same process to obtain the existence probability of the obstacle. In this way, we improve the accuracy of the estimation of the position of the obstacle by the existence probability. We present the experiment results to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
J. Zheng, T. Yamazato, K. Naito
IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC) Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications
This paper reports an extension of the private 5G service area to the outside of the licensed area by integrating visible light communication (VLC). As VLC is license-free, integrating the VLC function into the private 5G networks gives a more flexible system design. For example, it will be possible to provide services to mobile vehicles and robots working outside the service area of a private 5G network. Alternatively, private 5G networks in different locations can be connected. A challenge is integrating the VLC function into a 5G core network. We successfully designed a testbed and an experiment using open-source 5G projects to evaluate and compare methods to integrate VLC and private 5G, including the simulation of poor network environments. Experimental results demonstrate the availability of integrating private 5G with VLC, which are compared with image-based methods and show better latency performance.
T. Yamazato
IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC) Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications
2023年7月
Visible light communications (VLC) is a promising technology for automotive applications because it offers several advantages over traditional wireless communication technologies using radio waves. For example, VLC is more secure, as it is difficult to intercept VLC signals, and VLC is more reliable, as VLC signals are less susceptible to interference from other signals. As a result of these advantages, VLC is being considered for various automotive applications, such as in-car infotainment and navigation systems, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and autonomous driving. In this talk, he will explain VLC for cars using image sensor communication, one of the VLCs that use a camera as a receiver.
R. Huang, M. Kinoshita, T. Yamazato, H. Okada, K. Kamakura, S. Arai, T. Yendo, T. Fujii
IEICE Transactions on Fundamentals, vol.E106-A, no.7, pp.990-997
Visible light communication (VLC) and visible light ranging are applicable techniques for intelligent transportation systems (ITS). They use every unique light-emitting diode (LED) on roads for data transmission and range estimation. The simultaneous VLC and ranging can be applied to improve the performance of both. It is necessary to achieve rapid data rate and high-accuracy ranging when transmitting VLC data and estimating the range simultaneously. We use the signal modulation method of pulse-width modulation (PWM) to increase the data rate. However, when using PWM for VLC data transmission, images of the LED transmitters are captured at different luminance levels and are easily saturated, and LED saturation leads to inaccurate range estimation. In this paper, we establish a novel simultaneous visible light communication and ranging system for ITS using PWM. Here, we analyze the LED saturation problems and apply bicubic interpolation to solve the LED saturation problem and thus, improve the communication and ranging performance. Simultaneous communication and ranging are enabled using a stereo camera. Communication is realized using maximal-ratio combining (MRC) while ranging is achieved using phase-only correlation (POC) and sinc function approximation. Furthermore, we measured the performance of our proposed system using a field trial experiment. The results show that error-free performance can be achieved up to a communication distance of 55 m and the range estimation errors are below 0.5 m within 60 m.
This paper proposes a new estimation method of short-term power delay profile to reduce the noise power included in the short-term power delay profile. By reducing the noise, the multipath signal components buried in the noise can be utilized, thereby reducing the transmitted signal power and extending the cell range of a mobile communications. The proposed method iteratively creates the short-term power delay profile while lowering the threshold which distinguishes between signal and noise. The purpose of the threshold is to suppress the noise in each profile and to extract the effective multipath components. Furthermore, the method aligns and averages the phase of each instantaneous delay profile. In this way, only the noise component can be reduced while maintaining a high multipath power. As a result, we successfully reduced the noise power by 15 dB by analyzing the raw data of 200 instantaneous delay profiles measured in the 50 MHz bands at 3.35 GHz. Furthermore, the delay spread increased from 0.66 μs to 1.47 μs.
H. Omote, A. Sato, S. Kimura, S. Tanaka, H. Y. Lin, T. Yamazato
IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), pp. 1-4
High-Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) has recently been attracting much attention as a new mobile communication platform for ultra-wide coverage areas and disaster-resilient networks since it can provide communication services from an altitude of approximately 20 km via a balloon, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or other aircraft. In order to design efficient cell configurations for HAPS-based services, we need radio wave propagation models that consider various factors of vegetation, terrain, urban-suburban areas, and building entry loss. This paper focuses on propagation loss at high-elevation angles in urban and suburban areas. Recommendation ITU-R (International Telecommunication Union Radio communication sector) P.2108-1 describes the clutter loss model, which is the propagation loss caused by features such as buildings. The applicable frequency for ITU-R P.2108-1 is above 10 GHz; however, this model has no parameters for urban structure. Therefore, it needs to consider a correction for an urban structure to precisely evaluate clutter loss. We propose a new model that corrects Recommendation ITU-R P.2108 using shielding building heights as the urban structure. Since this new model was created based on measurements from 0.7 GHz to 5.7 GHz, the applicable frequencies are from 0.7 GHz to 5.7 GHz. Therefore, it is necessary to confirm whether the model applies to frequencies above 5.7 GHz. This paper compares the results of new propagation measurements at 29.3 GHz using a helicopter with the predicted results of the proposed model. The results show that the proposed model is applicable above 5.7 GHz.
Image sensor communication (ISC), also known as optical camera communication, is a form of visible light communication that utilizes image sensors rather than a single photodiode, for data reception. ISC offers spatial separation properties and robustness to ambient noise, making it suitable for outdoor applications such as intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). This review analyzes the research trends in ISC, specifically concerning its application in ITSs. Our focus is on various ISC receivers, including rolling shutter cameras, global shutter high-speed cameras, optical communication image sensors, and event cameras. We analyze how each of these receivers is being utilized in ISC vehicular applications. In addition, we highlight the use of ISC in range estimation techniques and the ability to achieve simultaneous communication and range estimation. By examining these topics, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the role of ISC technology in ITSs and its potential for future development.
Using a rolling shutter camera as a receiver, visible light communication (VLC) can achieve a significantly higher sampling rate than the frame rate because of its sequential exposure mechanism. This study focuses on optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) in a rolling shutter based VLC for further high-speed data rates. Because an image sensor is employed, conventional optical OFDM, such as DC-biased optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM), must fit in the grayscale range of 0–255 levels. Therefore, DCO-OFDM suffers from poor error performance owing to its high PAPR. To address this problem, we propose a polarity-separated transmission, in which the bipolar OFDM signal is separated into positive and negative parts and then transmitted by two LEDs simultaneously. Polarity-separated transmission is expected to double the grayscale range, i.e. 0–511, and improve error performance because it reconstructs the original bipolar signal by combining the received signals from two LEDs. We experimentally demonstrate and compare the symbol error rate (SER) performance of DCO-OFDM and polarity-separated transmissions. Consequently, polarity-separated transmission improved the SER performance by 10– 2 in the fundamental frequency range of 300–700 Hz when 16-PSK was adopted for subcarrier modulation.
1-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) have low power consumption and can easily speed up the analog-to-digital conversion and sampling. However, due to their resolution of only 1 bit, the nonlinearity between the input with multiple amplitude levels and output is large. With the method of utilizing noise proposed in previous studies, 1-bit ADCs can be linearized to demodulate signals with multi-level amplitude modulation like pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). In this letter, we construct a receiver circuit using a 1-bit ADC, evaluate its performance, and show its availability through demodulation experiments on 4-PAM signals.
M. Hattori, A. Tsujii, T. Kasashima, H. Hatano, T. Yamazato
International Conference on Emerging Technologies for Communications (ICETC), O5-5, Waseda University
2022年12月
We are working on the measurement of obstacle positions by an ultrasonic sensor array. This paper proposes a recursive position estimation method using signals from eight ultrasonic sensors forming a linear array. First, we estimate the distance to the obstacle from the time difference between the eight received signals. Then, assuming that the ranging error follows a Gaussian distribution and that each of the eight ranging values is independent, we can get the existence probability of the obstacle's position by a pair of two obtained distances. Finally, we estimate the position of the obstacle by multiplying 28 (8C2) existence probabilities obtained. The conventional method estimates the position of an obstacle by the above procedure. However, the estimation accuracy in the angular direction was poor, resulting in the spread of the existence probability in the horizontal direction. In the proposed recursive position estimation, we obtain the existence probability of an obstacle by the procedure shown above, and then use it as the prior probability of the obstacle's estimated position. Furthermore, we recursively perform the same process to obtain the existence probability of the obstacle. In this way, we improve the accuracy of the estimation of the position of the obstacle by the existence probability. We present the experiment results to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
D. Ehara, Z. Tang, M. Kinoshita, T. Yamazato, H. Okada, K. Kamakura, S. Arai, T. Yendo, T. Fujii
International Conference on Emerging Technologies for Communications (ICETC), S9-5, Tokyo
2022年12月
山里敬也
電子情報通信学会技術研究報告, WBS2022-43, pp. 48-53, 立命館大学 BKC エポック立命21 3階
Most of the previous research on the acquisition of the LED Array transmitter assumes that the onboard receiver approaches the LED transmitter from the car’s front. In this study, we considered a case where the vehicle’s receiver crosses the LED transmitter. This letter modifies the algorithm using spatial-temporal gradient values to detect LED arrays. As a result, we achieved error-free acquisition and successfully communicated up to 9728 [bits] at a vehicle speed of 25 [km/h].
S. Kamiya, Z. Tang, T. Yamazato,
IEEE ICC Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications (OWC), Seoul, South Korea
2022年5月
In this study, we investigate the application of visible light communication (VLC) to intelligent transport systems (ITS) using rolling shutter image sensors as receivers. The use of a global shutter high-speed image sensor as a receiver has been widely examined in ITS-VLC so far. However, this image sensor is impractical for general-purpose applications due to the high cost. This study aims to perform ITS-VLC using the rolling shutter image sensor. The rolling shutter image sensor is widely used in the smartphone camera. By using it as a receiver, ITS-VLC can be used in more opportunities. In this study, we propose a ITSVLC system using rolling shutter image sensor. The proposed system demodulates data from images captured in a moving environment. We evaluate the communication performance by measuring the bit error rate for the ITS-VLC experiments.
Z. Tang,T. Yamazato, S. Arai
IEEE ICC Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications (OWC), Seoul, South Korea
2022年5月
This study investigates a new communication scheme for the event camera-based visible light communication (VLC) using a propeller-type rotary LED transmitter. Conventional camera-based VLC suffers from low data rates and high latency due to the limited camera frame rates. To solve this problem, the event camera has been used as the receiver in VLC. Event cameras detect changes in brightness and asynchronously output these changes as events in microsecond order. The high temporal resolution gives the event camera-based VLC good potential in terms of high speed and low latency. However, when an event camera is used as the VLC receiver, the light of the transmitter needs to be changed constantly. If the transmitter LED is continuously in the same blinking state, the event camera may not output any events and the data could not be recovered until the blinking state changes. To transmit the optical signal for event cameras, we use a propeller-type rotary LED transmitter for the event camera-based VLC. The transmitter rotates the blinking LED in circles and uses the afterimage of LED light to transmit signals. The event camera detects the afterimages and constantly outputs them as a stream of events. We filter the noise events and recover data using signal events. This study verifies the operation for the proposed system through an implementation experiment. As a result, we achieved the communication in the proposed system and provided a basic evaluation in terms of communication speed and quality.
This study proposes a simplified Alamouti-type space-time coding (STC), improving the performance of image sensor communication (ISC) using a rotary LED transmitter. The rotary LED transmitter was developed to increase the data rate of ISC using afterimages of LED lights. The transmitter simultaneously causes the LEDs to blink and rotates them around a vertical axis. Owing to the movement of the blinking LEDs that occurs within the exposure time of the camera, multiple blinking states are captured as afterimages, thus increasing the amount of information that can be received per image. However, with increasing communication distance, the size of the LED light captured on the image sensor decreases. In this case, it is difficult to distinguish each LED blinking state, leading to a degradation of the demodulation performance. To overcome this problem, the proposed STC encodes adjacent angular afterimages as symbol pairs and transmits these symbol pairs using two symbol times. In addition, we simplified the data decoding process by using normalized LED luminance values. We evaluate the demodulation performance of the proposed method through experiments. Compared with conventional coding methods, the proposed STC requires no channel estimation and significantly improves the demodulation performance.
M. Kinoshita, T. Toguma, S. Yamaguchi, S. Ibaraki, K. Kamakura, T. Yamazato
IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC), pp.843-847, online
Intelligent Transport Systems Visible Light Communication (ITS-VLC) is attracting significant attention as a solution to solve various problems that vehicles have, or for the installation of new systems in the vehicles. In ITS-VLC, the acquisition of the VLC transmitter via light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in the onboard camera’s captured image is the first and essential step when receiving the VLC signal. Most of the previous research on the acquisition of the LEDs assumes that the vehicles approach the LEDs source from the front of the vehicle. However, there are many situations in which vehicles cross the LEDs. In this study, we considered a case in which the vehicle’s receiver crosses the LED transmitter. We modified the acquisition algorithm based on the spatial-temporal gradient utilized in our model in which the transmitter and the receiver cross each other. We found that we can acquire the transmitter by correcting the difference of the transmitter’s position in the captured image. When validating the specific signal, we achieved 100% acquisition success rate.
T. Yamazato
Wireless World Research Forum Meeting 46, Paris, France
2021年12月
Optical wireless communication has been around since the 1980s. Why has its time come now in 5G/6G? What is the change?
T. Ohtaguro, M. Saito, T. Yamazato
International Conference on Materials and Systems for Sustainability (ICMaSS), online
This study describes intelligent transport image sensor communication (ITS-ISC) systems that use LED arrays as transmitters that imitate traffic lights. Three signal-transmission schemes -luminance modulation, spatial modulation, and combined luminance and spatial modulation- use LED array. However, their suitability for ITS-ISC has not been explored yet. Therefore, we compare the communication performance of these three systems under strong saturation and present the results.
R. Huang, T. Yamazato, M. Kinoshita, H. Okada, K. Kamakura, S. Arai, T. Yendo, T. Fujii
IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, Nagoya, Japan
Visible light communication based intelligent transportation systems (ITS-VLC) show great potential for future urban mobility. This study presents a performance evaluation of range estimation between vehicles and infrastructures in an ITS-VLC system. In the proposed ITS-VLC system, it is easy to simultaneously conduct communication and ranging using stereo cameras. However, the stereo camera calibration becomes a problem during simultaneous communication and ranging due to vehicle vibration. Using the data from LED transmitters and stereo cameras, it can obtain multiple measurements of distance. The monocular-stereo fusion algorithm is applied to visible light ranging in the proposed scheme using particle swarm optimization. We employed real data from the field trial experiment and achieved a ranging accuracy of 60±1.0 m.
M. Hattori, A. Tsujii, T. Kasashima, H. Hatano, T.Yamazato
In this study, we propose a method for reducing angle error in position estimation of a moving target. The distance between the transmitting array and target is approximated by two receiving sensors close to the transmitting array. This enables more accurate distance measurement between the receiving sensor and the target.