On the Role of the Power Electronics on Visible
Light Communication
Javier Sebastin, Daniel G. Aller, Juan Rodrguez,
and Diego G. Lamar.
Universidad de Oviedo. Grupo de Sistemas Electrnicos
de Alimentacin (SEA). Campus Universitario de
Viesques. 33204 Gijn. SPAIN
sebas@uniovi.es
Abstract The continuous demand of increasingly high data
rates services provided by wireless communications systems is
contributing to saturate the RF spectrum. Visible Light
Communication (VLC) systems try to alleviate this congestion by
placing information transmission features alongside illumination
systems. These systems have been proposed to make use of High-
Brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs) to illuminate and to transmit with
high power efficiency. The high bit rates achieved by VLC
systems are based on the use of linear power amplifier and, as a
consequence, poor power efficiency is provided by the
transmitter. In this sense, this paper proposes different solutions
based on the use of fast-response DC/DC converters for the VLC
transmitter in order to perform a more efficient transmitter,
which will allow higher power levels.
KeywordsVisible Light Communication (VLC), High-
Brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs) and Fast-response DC/DC
converters.
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, wide bandwidth wireless communication
systems, which enable transmission rates in the order of the
megabytes per second, are widely use. The services provided
are very varied, ranging from cellular communications and
internet access via 3G and 4G, WiFi networking, digital video
broadcasting for terrestrial television, small area networks
using Bluetooth and ZigBee, etc. All these services make use
of the RF spectrum to perform their transmission capabilities.
The access to the RF spectrum is tightly regulated by different
governing bodies in order to accommodate such a number of
services allowing all of them to operate without interfering
with each other or with other systems such as RADAR, radio
telescopes, etc. Therefore, the RF spectrum is a scarce resource
[1, 2] and several efforts have been made to allow a fair
resource allocation, even using new techniques such as
cognitive radio. In addition, there are certain environments
where the use of the RF spectrum is prohibited or unsuitable
due to the problems caused by the interferences with critical
systems (aviation, hospitals, nuclear power plants, etc.). As a
consequence, alternative wireless communication systems, like
Optical Wireless Communication (OWC), have been explored
in last decades.
Recently, standards of Visible Light Communication
(VLC) [3, 4], i.e. a subcategory of OWC, have been proposed.
VLC is a wireless communication system that combines the
transmission task with the illumination functionality of Solid-
This work has been supported by the Spanish Government under Project
MINECO-DPI2016-75760-R, the scholarship FPU14/03268 and the
Principality of Asturias by the Project FC-15-GRUPIN14-143 and by
European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grants.
978-1-5090-5366-7/17/$31.00 2017 IEEE
Pablo F. Miaja
Power Systems Division - European Space Agency (ESA)
Noordwijk THE NETHERLANDS
pablo.fernandez@esa.int
State Lighting (SSL) systems. VLC standards propose the use
of visible light to perform both communications and lighting
tasks. Instead of modulating the amplitude or/and the
frequency or/and the phase of an RF signal, as it occurs in
standard communications, the intensity of the visible light
emitted by High-Brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs) is modulated. It
is important to note that the frequency of the light intensity
variations should be high enough to not to affect the
illumination task. In order to modulate the light intensity
emitted, the current through the HB-LEDs has to be carefully
controlled. In this sense, the current modulation is translated to
light intensity modulation following the characteristics of the
HB-LEDs. Moreover, as both the illumination and the
communication functionalities have to be provided by the same
HB-LED (or string of HB-LEDs), the modulated current
should be sitting around a DC bias level. This DC current bias
will provide the bulk of the illumination task, whereas the
information will be provided by the current variations in the
vicinity of this DC current bias.
The information can be sent by the HB-LED according to
different strategies. To illustrate this, a digital signal s1 is going
to be considered (see Fig. 1a). The possibilities to send this
signal are the following:
a) First of all, an AC current iac_LED, proportional to the signal
a)
b)
ibias_LED
VDC
iLED
iac_LED ibias_LED
Serializer
s1
TCA iLED
iac_LED
Digital s1
data HB-LED
c)
Fig. 1. Base Band Transmission. a) Signal to be transmitted. b)
Current passing through the HB-LED. c) Transmitter scheme.
2420
 s1, is added to a bias current ibias_LED (see Fig. 1b), thus
preforming the total current passing through the HB-LED,
iLED. Therefore, the information is sent in Base Band (BB).
We will call this scheme Base Band Transmission (BBT).
Fig. 1c shows the diagram of a very simple VLC
transmitter for BBT with the same structure as a transmitter
for Fiber-Optic Communication (FOC). The digital
information is serialized and translated to the adequate a)
current levels via a Transconductance Amplifier (TCA). At
the output, a constant current source ibias_LED is added for
biasing the HB-LED. This scheme is very simple, but the
communication is affected by many other possible focuses
of light, which is a problem that exists in VLC and does not
exist in FOC.
b)
b) The second possibility is to modulate a carrier vc with
signal s1. As an example, Fig. 2a shows the HB-LED
current when Amplitude-Shift Keying (ASK) has been used
to transmit signal s1 (the actual modulations used for this
purpose are far from this very simple type of modulation).
The modulated signal is amplified using an RF Power
Amplified (RFPA). The AC signal obtained is added to the c)
HB-LED bias current ibias_LED to obtain the total HB-LED
current iLED. In this case, the immunity to the interferences
due to other focuses of light increases and more than one
transmission can take place at the same room if carriers of
different frequencies are used. We will call this scheme
Single Carrier Modulated Transmission (SCMT). In spite
of the aforementioned advantages, this scheme does not
avoid the problems due to the different trajectories that the
light rays can follow from the light focus to the receiver
(i.e., the multipath issue).
c) The third possibility is to split the digital information into
several sequences of bits (instead of one) and to modulate
several carriers with these sequences. Also as an example,
Fig. 3a shows two sequences of bits s2 (odd bits of s1: b1, b3
and b5) and s3 (even bits of s1: b2, b4 and b6) with the same
information as s1, but with a slow rate of bits. These signals
d)
are used to modulate carriers vc2 and vc3 (of different Fig. 3. Multiple Carrier Modulated Transmission. a) Sequences of
frequencies, see Fig. 3b) using ASK, thus obtaining signals bits to be transmitted. b) Signals modulated with signals s2 and s3. c)
Current passing through the HB-LED. d) Transmitter scheme based
on a single RF Power Amplifier.

vASK2 and vASK3. Once we have two modulated signals, we

have three possibilities:
a) - To add both signals using a combiner and to amplify the
signal obtained (see Fig. 3d) using a single wide-band
ibias_LED RFPA.
VDC iLED
- To amplify both signals using different narrow-band
Modulator ibias_LED
RFPAs and to add the signals thus obtained before to
Serializer RFPA iLED
deliver this addition to the HB-LED (see Fig. 4a).
s1
iac_LED
Digital
- To amplify both signals using different narrow-band
vc RFPAs and to deliver the amplified signal to two different
data iac_LED
s1 vc HB-LEDs (see Fig. 4b).
HB-LED
In all these cases, the appropriate bias current ibias_LED must
b) be delivered to the HB-LED. Obviously, the process
Fig. 2. Single Carrier Modulated Transmission. a) Current passing described here for two carriers can be generalized to several
through the HB-LED. b) Transmitter scheme.
carriers, signals and types of modulation. We will call this
scheme Multiple Carrier Modulated Transmission

2421

a)
b)
Fig. 4. Multiple Carrier Modulated Transmission with several RF
Power Amplifiers. a) With only one HB-LED. b) With several HB-
LEDs.
(MCMT). The main advantage of using MCMT is that the
multipath issue is alleviated.
Most of the literature that can be found is focused on the
signal processing involved, modulations used and their
implementations [5-9], the modelling of the LEDs [10] and
some low-power, custom-made, hardware for emitters and
receivers [11]. There is a continuous increment in the bit rate
provided by the VLC systems [12-21] by the use of complex
modulation and/or multiplexing schemes such as Quadrature
Amplitude Modulation (QAM) [22], Wavelength Division
Multiplexing (WDM) [20] or Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (OFDM) [23]. These schemes increase the
spectral efficiency (i.e., more bits per symbol are transmitted)
and mitigate other problems like the multipath issue. However,
these solutions avoid a key aspect: the poor energy efficiency
provided by the transmitters used in their prototypes achieving
low power levels of transmission as a consequence of this. This
is due to the fact that the RFPAs are operating in Class A,
Class B or Class AB to achieve the wide bandwidth and
linearity demanded by these complex modulation/multiplexing
schemes.
2422
In order to increase the power levels associated to the light
emitted and, at the same time, to have high power efficiency in
the SSL systems, solutions derived from switching-mode
DC/DC converters should be explored. In this sense, the
objective is either that a DC/DC converter performs both the
DC biasing and the light intensity modulation (i.e., the
illumination and transmission functionalities), or several
DC/DC converters contribute to increase the efficiency of the
overall system by increasing the efficiency of the RFPAs.
Some implementations of DC/DC converters performing both
illumination and transmission functionalities have already been
proposed [24-27]. However, as [28] indicates, the bit rate
achieved is too low due to the simple modulation schemes
used: On-Off Keying (OOK) or Pulse Position Modulation
(PPM). In order to overcome this limitation, a set of possible
implementations of high efficiency VLC transmitters based on
the use of DC/DC converters will be addressed in the next
section. They will be in charge of increasing the bit rate while
maintaining high energy efficiency in the transmitter.
II. USING SWITCHING-MODE DC/DC CONVERTERS TO
INCREASE THE EFFICIENCY OF VLC TRANSMITTERS
As in any electronics device, a switching-mode converter
(either AC/DC or DC/DC) will be in charge of generate the DC
voltage level needed to supply power to any VLC system. The
voltage source represented as VDC in the circuits shown in Fig.
1-4 will be the output port of that converter. No specific design
constrains will distinguish this first converter to any other
converter.
In addition to the aforementioned converter, other power
converters (in this case they are DC/DC converters) can help us
to increase the efficiency of VLC transmitters. They will be
described in the following sub-sections.
A. Slow-response DC/DC converters used to generate the
current bias for HB-LED strings
A DC/DC converter can be used to generate the DC level
of the current passing through the HB-LEDs (see Fig. 5). It can
be a standard HB-LED driver, which means that it is a slow-
response converter, designed without any significant challenge.
The information will be amplified by either an RFPA (SCMT,
as in Fig. 5) or a power TCA (BBT).
Fig. 5. Slow-response DC/DC converter used to generate the bias current
of a HB-LED string used for VLC. As an example, the modulation is
ASK.
B. Fast-response DC/DC converters used to synthesize the
overall current passing through the HB-LED string
In this case, also only a DC/DC converter is used in the final
implementation. However, this converter is very challenging in
this case, because it is in charge of generating both the DC bias
current and also the AC current level corresponding to the
information to be transmitted, either for BBT, or for SCMT
(see Fig. 6), or for MCMT. The cut-off frequency
corresponding to the transfer function between the control
variable (the converter duty cycle) and the output voltage must
be as high as the higher frequency component of the AC a)
current that is going to be transmitted. In practice this means
that extremely fast response converters must be used for this
purpose.
In the past, fast-response DC/DC converters, capable of
changing their output voltage at MHz rate, have been proposed
to implement techniques used to increase the efficiency of
RFPAs. The most popular of these techniques are the Envelope
Tracking (ET) and Envelope Elimination and Restoration
(EER) [29]. In both cases, a fast-response DC/DC converter
has to generate the time-varying output voltage that is used as
power supply for the RFPA. The variations of this voltage are b)
imposed by the envelope of the communication signal
processed by the RFPA. This fast-response DC/DC is often
known as Envelope Modulator or Envelope Amplifier. Over
the years, several designs of fast-response DC/DC converters
conceived to work as Envelope Amplifiers have been proposed
[30-37]. Most of these designs derive from the Buck converter,
since this converter exhibits linearity between the control and
the output voltage if it has been designed to operate in the
Continuous Conduction Mode (CCM). Some examples of these
converters are shown in Fig. 7.
The frequencies of the carriers used in VLC are in the range
from a few kHz to a few tens of MHz. To synthesize output
voltage variations in this range, the switching frequency of the
DC/DC converter must be in the range of 50-100 MHz, which c)
leads to low efficiency for converters in the range of 100 W.
To increase the transient response of the DC/DC converter, the Fig. 7. Examples of fast-response DC/DC converters suitable to be used
to synthesize the current passing through an HB-LED string used for
combination of switching and linear stages can provide certain VLC. a) Multi-Input Buck converter (MIBuck) [33]. b) Two-phase Buck
benefits. This solution has also been explored for ET converter with 4th order filter [34]. c) Floating Multiphase Buck
applications [38-41]. The two more common linear switching converter [36].
combinations are depicted in Fig. 8. Series combination (Fig.
8b) is often regarded as less efficient, since all the current selected they can outperform the parallel combination [42].
through the HB-LEDs has to pass through a dissipative linear One of the main difficulties is to drive transistor Q1, whose
stage. However, if the input voltage to this stage is carefully source terminal is not referred to ground. However, the HB-
LED string can be connected between the output of the

a) b)
Fig. 6. Fast-response DC/DC converters used to synthesize the current Fig. 8. Using a linear regulator to increase the transient response of a
passing through an HB-LED string for VLC. In this example, ASK is switching-mode DC/DC converter. a) Parallel connection. b) Series
transmitted using SCMT. connection.

2423
 Slow-response
Envelope Amplifier DC/DC
VDC Fast-response converter ibias_LED
DC/DC
converter Bias iLED
Envelope control
venv control
venv vdc_RFPA
Envelope
8-QAM detector iLED
Linear - +
mod. RFPA
v8QAM vac_LED
Delay
s4 Line
v8QAM
vc vdc_RFPA
s4 vac_LED
vc

Fig. 9. Fast-response DC/DC converter proposed in [43] to directly HB-LEDs

synthesize the bias current and the QAM over a string of HB-LEDs.
a)
switching stage and the drain terminal of Q1, thus allowing the
Slow-response
source terminal of Q1 to be connected to ground. This solution Envelope Amplifier DC/DC
is not useful when one of the load terminals has to be VDC Fast-response converter ibias_LED
DC/DC
connected to ground, which is very common in other cases. converter Bias iLED
venv Envelope control
C. Fast-response DC/DC converters used to synthesize QAM, control
venv vdc_RFPA
ASK or PSK from the converter ripple v8QAM
Envelope
detector
iLED
In any conventional Buck-type DC/DC converter, the v8QAM Switching - +
output filter must be designed to reject the switching RFPA vac_LED
frequency. This is also true in the case of aforementioned fast- s4
+ Delay
- v Line
response converters, when the design of the output filter is vc vdc_RFPA
s4 v
critical [34], because this filter must be pass-band for all the vac_LED
vc
components belonging to the signal to be transmitted and must
be stop-band for all the switching frequency components and 8-QAM
mod. HB-LEDs
their side bands (especially for the lower side band below the
switching frequency). b)
When the information to transmit is modulated in QAM, Fig. 10. Achieving efficient linear RFPA for VLC with the help of fast-
ASK or PSK, a new solution is possible. In this case, the output response DC/DC converters. a) ET technique. b) EER technique.
filter is not designed to reject the converter switching
frequency fs, but to allow it to reach the HB-LED string. QAM signal v8QAM shown in Fig. 11a is going to be
Components of 2fs and above must be rejected by the filter. As considered. From this waveform, the value of its envelope venv
a consequence, a sinusoidal waveform plus a DC component and a waveform with the information of its phase v can be
could be synthesized at the converter output. The amplitude obtained from a peak detector and a comparator, respectively
and the phase of this sinusoidal waveform can be controlled if (many times this information can be obtained directly from de
the DC/DC converter is a two-phase one (i.e., the one shown in modulation process). Signal venv is used in both techniques to
Fig. 7b). The DC level can be controlled by the converter duty determine the control signal of the Envelope Amplifier, which
cycle. The implementation shown in Fig. 9 has been generates a high power version of venv (labeled as vDC_RFPA)
successfully proved to synthesize a 64-QAM over a string of which in fact is the varying voltage used to supply power to
HB-LEDs [43]. Therefore, QAM modulation is feasible the RFPA. On the other hand, the voltage at the input port of
without having to switch the converter at higher frequencies
the RFPA is different in both techniques: it is a delayed
than the carrier frequency.
version of v8QAM in ET techniques and it is v (a signal with
D. Fast-response DC/DC converters used as Envelope only phase information, also properly delayed) in the case of
Amplifiers for RFPAs used in VLC the EER techniques.
As mentioned before, ET and EER techniques have been It should be noted that the fast-response DC/DC converter
proposed either to increase the efficiency of linear RFPAs (in must be fast enough to reproduce the variation of the envelope
the case of ET) or to achieve a linear RFPA from a non-linear of the modulated signal (the envelope of the 8-QAM in our
and efficient switching-mode RFPA (in the case of EER). example). This is a big difference in comparison with the fast-
These techniques can be directly used to achieve a final linear response DC/DC converter needed to directly synthesize the
and efficient RFPA in the general schemes shown in Fig. 2b, modulated waveform, according to Fig. 6. However, the same
Fig. 3d, Fig. 4a, Fig. 4b and Fig. 5. topologies as the ones proposed to implement the solution
The use of these techniques in VLC is depicted in Fig. 10. shown in Fig. 6 (e.g., converters depicted in Fig. 7) can be
To illustrate the differences between both techniques, the 8- used here, but replacing the HB-LEDs with the RFPA. Also in

2424

a)
b)
c)
d)
Fig. 11. Example of 8-QAM signal. a) Original signal and its
envelope. b) Signal containing the phase information. c) Voltage at
the output of the Envelope Amplifier. d) AC component of the
voltage across the HB-LED string.
this case, linear-assisted solutions (see Fig. 8) can help to
increase the dynamic response of the Envelope Amplifier.
Finally, linear and efficient RFPAs obtained by using ET
and ERR techniques can be used in MCMT, according to the
possible implementations given in Fig. 4d, Fig. 5a and Fig. 5b.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The experimental results are divided into the
characterization of HB-LEDs for VLC and an example of VLC
using a Two-phase Buck Converter.
A. HB-LEDs characterization
In order to use a HB-LED for VLC, it is important to
characterize both its equivalent dynamic resistance (defined as
the slope of the I-V curve in the vicinity of the operating point)
and its bandwidth achieved.
Although the slope of the I-V curve can be taken from the
HB-LED datasheet, it should be noted that it will vary with the
temperature reached during operation. As a consequence, some
kind of feedback might have to be implemented to compensate
these variations. This kind of feedback is often used in LASER
diodes for guided optical communications [44], where the light
intensity and temperature are closely monitored. In the case of
the HB-LED used for experimental results (W 42180, from
a) b)
Fig. 12. a) Circuit to measure the bandwidth of the HB-LEDs. b) Optical
receiver.
2425
Seoul Semiconductor) the value of this dynamic resistance is
1.6 . (from the datasheet).
In order to measure the bandwidth of the selected HB-LED
for VLC, a simple Class A amplifier (depicted in Fig. 12a) has
been built. The AC component of vgs comes from a HP-3598A
Spectrum-Network Analyzer. The current through the HB-
LED is sensed using a 2.5 resistor. The transconductance
between vgs and the AC component of iLED is shown in Fig.
13a. It can be seen how the 3 dB bandwidth spans between 0.1
and 20 MHz. This means that signals with a harmonic content
within this bandwidth can be transferred to light by the HB-
LED. Therefore, this is the bandwidth where the
communication signals must be placed.
In order to provide good illumination levels, several HB-
LEDs should be connected together in series and/or in parallel.
This combination affects the transmission bandwidth, as shown
in Fig. 13a.
The aforementioned measurements reveal the bandwidth of
the transconductance of the system made up of the amplifier
and the HB-LED. However, the bandwidth of the VLC system
includes the optical receiver. This means that a proper Photo
Diode (PD) must be selected. It should be noted that white HB-
LEDs usually have a phosphorus layer that convert the blue
light emitted by the semiconductor into white light suitable for
illumination. In order to compute the complete VLC
bandwidth, the frequency response of this phosphorus should
be taken into account. Alternatively, a blue filter can be used to
block all the light spectral components provided by the
a)
b)
Fig. 13. Frequency response measurements. a) Transconductance
between vgs and the AC component of iLED. b) Complete VLC Bode plot
with and without a blue filter.
phosphorus, leaving only the blue light generated by the
semiconductor. The final optical receiver used to measure the
bandwidth of the VLC system is given in Fig. 12b, where the
PD is an S 5972 (from Hamamatsu). The HP-3598A (used as
Network Analyzer) is connected to the gate of the MOSFET
and to the output of the optical receiver. Results that have been
obtained are shown in the Bode plot of Fig. 13b. A slope of
about -5 dB per decade has been measured in this plot when a
blue light filter (from Chris James) is used. In a real case, this
slope could be partially compensated at the signal processing
stage. The bandwidth obtained with this filter is clearly wider
than the one obtained without a filter. However, it is important
to remark that each plot shown in Fig. 13b has been normalized
at its low frequency response, the actual magnitude of the plot
obtained with the filter being 15 dB below the one obtained
without the filter. These results fit with the ones presented by
other researchers [12, 13].
B. Results obtained using a Two-phase Buck converter to
synthesize the overall HB-LED string current
The circuit given in Fig. 7b has been utilized to drive a
string of 5 HB-LEDs in series connection (see Fig. 14a). The
basic implementation is the same as the one presented in [34],
the only difference being the switching frequency (5 MHz in
this case) and the value of the reactive components of the
output filter (cut-off frequency at 1.3 MHz): L1a = L1b = 3.15
H, C2 = 25.4 nF, L3 = 1.39 H and C4 = 9.49 nF. The load is
assumed to be 8 (5 diodes multiplied by 1.6 ).
A waveform made up of the 3 first harmonics of a 200 kHz
a)
b)
Fig. 14. a) Prototype of a Two-phase Buck converter designed to supply
power to a string of 5 HB-LEDs. b) Waveforms obtained reproducing a
signal with components of 200 kHz, 600 kHz and 1 MHz. The trace in
blue is the voltage applied to the HB-LEDs and the trace in yellow is the
output voltage of the VLC receiver of Fig 12b.
2426
square wave signal (components of 200 kHz, 600 kHz and 1
MHz) has been used for testing (see Fig. 14b). The trace in
blue is the voltage applied to the HB-LEDs and the trace in
yellow is the output of the VLC receiver. The output power is
around 20 W and the efficiency achieved was about 90%.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
Power electronics plays a very important role in
maintaining high efficiency in lighting devices when they are
used in VLC. Fast response DC/DC converters can help in this
task in several different ways:
- Being able of synthesizing the desired current waveform
passing through the HB-LEDs (both the bias and the AC
components) by properly changing its duty cycle. As in any
conventional converter, the switching frequency ripple must be
removed at the output port, but the output filter must behave as
a band-pass filter for the waveform that is going to be
synthesized.
- Being able of synthesizing digital modulations such as
ASK, PSK or QAM from the non-removed output voltage
ripple. The implementation of this option implies the use of a
two-phase converter. In this case, the duty cycle determines the
bias current and the amplitude and phase of the modulated
signal is determined by the phases of the control signals.
- Working as Envelope Amplifiers to achieve an efficient
and linear RFPA from either a linear and non-efficient RFPA
(ET technique) or a non-linear and efficient RFPA (EER
technique). In this case, another slow-response DC/DC
converter is in charge of the biasing task, whereas the RFPA is
in charge of boosting the modulated signal to the desired level.
The experimental results demonstrate that a bandwidth of 1
MHz can be achieved with the proper design of a Two-phase
Buck converter with a 4th order filter and switching at 5 MHz.
The output power (20 W) and the efficiency achieved (90%)
also demonstrate that both efficient illumination and quite fast
data transmission are possible with a very simple hardware.
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