IETE Journal of Research

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Adaptive MMSE Equalizer for Optical Multipath

Dispersion in Indoor Visible Light Communication

Ying Yi, Changping Li & Kyesan Lee

To cite this article: Ying Yi, Changping Li & Kyesan Lee (2012) Adaptive MMSE Equalizer for
Optical Multipath Dispersion in Indoor Visible Light Communication, IETE Journal of Research,
58:5, 347-355

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.4103/0377-2063.104150

Published online: 01 Sep 2014.

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 Adaptive MMSE Equalizer for Optical Multipath
Dispersion in Indoor Visible Light Communication
Ying Yi, Changping Li and Kyesan Lee
Department of Electronics and Radio Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Suwon, Korea

ABSTRACT
Multipath dispersion results from optical signals passing through more than one path. In this paper, we investigate a
non-directed line of sight (LOS) model using white light emitting diode illumination. Typically in such a link, the optical
signals are modeled as a reflection component and a directed LOS component over optical wireless (OW) channels.
However, inter-symbol interference (ISI) induced by multipath dispersion critically influences the performance of OW
communications. In this paper, we propose the adaptive minimum mean squared error (MMSE) equalizer scheme
to suppress the multipath ISI, since this scheme can minimize the mean square error (MSE) between the desired
equalizer output and the actual equalizer output. We compared the following two algorithms: Least mean square and
recursive least square. Our computer simulations demonstrated that visible light communication using an adaptive
MMSE equalizer can alleviate the serious effects of optical multipath dispersion.

Keywords:
Adaptive minimum mean squared error equalizer, Optical multipath dispersion, Visible light communication.

1. INTRODUCTION recognized as the major obstacle to high-speed data

In the 21st century, high data transmission speeds are
essential to meet customer demands. Both the industrial
and scientific communities have recognized that optical
wireless (OW) communication is suitable for high-
speed data transmission, especially in indoor wireless
communication systems. Moreover, it is difficult for
light waves to penetrate through physical obstacles
such as walls; with respect to security, it is relatively
easy to prevent interference and signal interception of
OW signals from the outside; and OW signals do not
suffer from electromagnetic interference (EMI) as do
the existing radio systems because the light spectrum
does not occupy a radio frequency (RF) spectrum.
Thus, OW systems can be employed in places where
electromagnetic communication is strictly prohibited,
such as airport runways. Recently, visible light
communication (VLC) has attracted attention due to
progress in the field of visible light technology [1]. Visible
light has several attractive features distinct from those
of RF and infrared (IR) [2]. Light emitting diodes (LEDs)
and laser diodes (LD) are usually used as optical sources,
but LEDs are the preferred candidates for next generation
lighting technology [3-7] for several reasons, including
fewer safety concerns, a relatively long useful lifetime,
and a wider emission angle than those of LDs [8].
As a transmitter for OW communication, LED lights
emit visible rays as the medium for data transmission.
In optical propagation channels, inter-symbol interference
(ISI) induced by optical multipath dispersion has been
transmission. Fortunately, equalization is a viable
technique used to prevent ISI, and is also able to support
higher quality and more reliable VLC, in practice. It
should be noted that the description of VLC system using
the equalizer in the previous papers [9-11], for example,
the relationship between the data rate and the effect by the
equalizer in [10], however, assumed the channel impulse
response was static and did not examine the effects of
optical multipath dispersion during the communication.
Different from the earlier studies, in this paper, we focus
on the impact of multipath dispersion and evaluate the
performance of an adaptive minimum mean squared
error (MMSE) equalizer to mitigate multipath ISI, since it
can track the channel variations by transmitting the pilot
symbols as training sequences. Least mean square (LMS)
and recursive least square (RLS) algorithms are used in
an adaptive MMSE equalizer for MMSE. By computer
simulations, we found that adaptive MMSE equalizer is
an effective and feasible method to mitigate the serious
effects of multipath dispersion in practical VLC. The
paper is organized as follows: Section 2 illustrates the
OW channel, section 3 illustrates the fundamentals of
MMSE algorithms, LMS and RLS, section 4 outlines the
basic concept of the analysis model, section 5 presents
the theoretical analysis and computer simulation results,
and section 6 provides our conclusions.
2. OW CHANNEL
Optical signals generally propagate through two kinds
of paths. One is an uninterrupted line of sight (LOS) path

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 Yi Y, et al.: Adaptive MMSE Equalizer for Optical Multipath Dispersion in Indoor VLC
between the transmitter and receiver, and the other is
a path which relies upon reflection of the light from a
reflecting surface. Their advantages and drawbacks are
detailed in [12]. The channel direct current (DC) gain of
LOS is given in [12] as:
n+1
H(0 )LOS = ( ) A cosn φ cos ψ 
2π d 2
where A is the physical area of photodetector (PD), d
is the distance between the emitter and the receiver, Ψ
is the angle of incidence [Figure 1], Ø is the angle from
the receiver to the transmitter, and the order n is related
to the transmitter semi-angle Ф1/2 (at half illuminance),
given by:
In 2
n=−  (2)
In(cosΦ1/2 )
For example, Ф1/2 of a typical directed transmitter is
15°, which corresponds to n=20. However, an LOS link
is easily interrupted by obstacles, and in this case, the
propagation of optical signals depends only on reflection
from the reflecting surface. As shown in Figure 1, we
assume that the reflection point is a fairly small region
of reflection plane, where the reflectivity is ρ, and h is
the vertical separation between the reflection point and
receiver. We can obtain the gain of directed-or-hybrid-
non-LOS [12] by:
H (0 )directed − or − hybrid − non − LOS
ρ hA
= cos ψ 
π [ h 2 + ( d / 2 )2 ]3/2
We assume the locations of the transmitter and receiver
are fixed, and move the reflection plane in order to
increase h. Figure 2 shows the normalized channel DC
gain of reflection light which is defined as the ratio of
the gain of directed-or-hybrid-non-LOS to LOS from
equations (1)–(3). Because d is fixed and the propagation
time through the reflection path is greater than that of
the LOS path causing the delay time, as h grows, the
delay time increases. From Figure 2, we can see that the
Reflectivity ρ
d
LOS
Transmitter
Figure 1: Geometries used in LOS and reflection channel DC
gain calculations.
348
ratio of the reflected light is small, less than 10% with
the increasing propagation time. Therefore, the LOS
light has a much greater influence on the performance
of the OW communication. In an optical propagation
channel, if the reflection area is very small, the optical
power of reflection light is so insignificant that we can
ignore the effects. However, in a diffuse channel, which
(1)
is caused by numerous signal reflections off surfaces,
optical multipath dispersion has a negative influence on
propagation performance.
3. FUNDAMENTALS OF EQUALIZATION
ALGORITHM
3.1 Adaptive MMSE Equalizer
The OW channel model can be described by the following
general expression:
Y(t) = rX( t ) ⊗ h(t ) + n(t).  (4)
where X(t) and Y(t) represent the transmitted optical
pulse and received signal current, respectively, n(t) is the
additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), h(t) is the channel
impulse response, r is the O/E conversion efficiency, and
the symbol ⊗ denotes convolution. Therefore, the receiver
electrical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) from [12] is:
r 2 Pr 2
SNR = (5)
Rb N 0
where Pr is the average optical power received, Rb is the
bit ratem and N0 is the power spectral density given by
(3) the optical power of the background light Pbg [13] as:
N 0 = qrPbg  (6)
where q represents an elementary charge (1.6 × 10−19 C).
Ψ ref
h
Ψ LOS
Receiver
Figure 2: Comparison of channel DC gain of directed LOS
light and reflection light with reflectivity ρ = 0.7.
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 Yi Y, et al.: Adaptive MMSE Equalizer for Optical Multipath Dispersion in Indoor VLC

If the impulse response of the equalizer is heq(t), then the =dk Y= k Wk

T
Wk T Yk (12)
received signal passing through the equalizer is:
where xk is the desired equalizer output, and the error
∧
d(t ) = Y (t ) ⊗ h (t ) signal ek is given by:
eq

= rX (t ) ⊗ h(t ) + n(t ) ⊗ heq (t )  (7) ek = x k − dk  (13)

and we ignore the effect of noise. Subsequently, in order
to force the output of the equalizer to equal the original
source data,
h(t ) ⊗ heq (t ) = 1

In the frequency domain, equation (8) can be expressed
as:
H ( f ) × H eq ( f ) = 1 
where H(f ) and Heq(f) are Fourier transforms of h(t) and
heq(t), respectively. From equation (9), we can see that
an equalizer is actually an inverse filter of the channel.
The diagram in Figure 3 shows the adaptive MMSE
equalizer structure at the receiver. The received signal
at the equalizer can be defined as a vector Yk, such that:
T (10)
Yk=  yk yk − 1 yk − 2 ⋅⋅⋅ yk − N  
where yk is the input signal to the equalizer, N is the
number of delay elements, and T means transpose. As the
estimation process, the channel estimator uses training
sequences to evaluate the channel state information
(CSI). We assume that the synchronization is perfect in
order to evaluate the channel estimation alone. Base on
feedback estimation, the adaptive algorithm can update
each weight wnk. The weight of the equalizer can be
written as a vector Wk, such that:
Wk = [ w0 k w1 k w2 k ...wNk ]T (11)
Then, the output of the adaptive equalizer can be written
in vector notation as:
The MMSE equalizer is used to minimize the mean
square error (MSE) |ek|2 at time instant k. Moreover, all
signal processing is performed in time domain. In this
paper, the MMSE equalizer is driven by LMS algorithm
(8) and RLS algorithm, respectively, and a comparison is
also made between the results of these two algorithms.
3.2 LMS Algorithm
The LMS algorithm is the simplest equalization
(9) algorithm for minimizing the MSE; it requires only 2N
+ 1 operations per iteration. LMS is computed iteratively
by the following equations to update the equalizer
weights:
∧
dk(n) = WN T (n)YN (n)  (14)
∧
ek(n) = xk(n) − dk(n) (15)
WN (n + 1) = WN (n) -  ek * (n)YN (n) (16)
where α is the step size, YN is the training sequence into
the equalizer, and n denotes the sequence of iterations.
The convergence rate and stability of the algorithm are
controlled by only one parameter, the step size α.
3.3 RLS Algorithm
The RLS algorithm is more complex than the LMS
algorithm, but RLS demonstrates a faster convergence
rate. Usually, the initialization values of w(0), k(0), and
x(0) are zero, and R−1(0) = δINN , where INN is an N×N
identity matrix and δ is a large positive constant. RLS is
computed recursively to update the equalizer weights
as follows:
∧
d(n) = W T (n − 1)Y (n)  (17)

Adaptive algorithm that

updates each weight Wnk
Input Output
data, yk MMSE data, dk
Receiver Equalizer
Desired
+
response, xk
Channel Adaptive
estimator algorithm error ek

Weight calculation

Figure 3: MMSE equalizer structure.

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 Yi Y, et al.: Adaptive MMSE Equalizer for Optical Multipath Dispersion in Indoor VLC
∧ r (t ) = Ad(t − τ ) cos( wct + θ ) (25)
e(n) = x(n) − d(n) (18)
R -1(n - 1)Y (n)
K (n) =  (19)
l + Y T (n)R -1(n - 1)Y (n)
1 −1
P −1 (ν ) = [P (ν − 1) − K (ν )ΨT (ν )P −1 (ν − 1)] (20)
λ
W (n) = W (n − 1) + K (n)e * (n) (21)
where λ is the forgetting factor. A smaller λ can achieve
a better tracking ability, but, it is at the expense of an
unstable equalizer. Usually, a forgetting factor value of
0.8 < λ < 1 is used.
4. BASIC CONCEPTS IN DIFFUSE CHANNEL
4.1 Optical Multipath Dispersion
Realistic visible light channels can be characterized by
optical path loss and multipath dispersion. The optical
path loss indicates the relationship between transmitter
power and receiver power, and multipath dispersion
limits the data rate of an OW system due to diffuse
channels.
In an indoor environment with distributed light sources,
numerous signals reflect off surfaces, resulting in diffuse
channels. The receiver detects not only the direct LOS
signals from the transmitter, but also the optical energy
reflected from the surfaces, as long as the signal collection
location is within the illumination field of view (FOV).
Pulses of light arrive at the receiver at slightly different
times because of different propagation paths, referred
to as propagation delays.
At the transmitter, the signal is modulated onto its carrier
before it is transmitted. wc is the carrier frequency, A is
the amplitude of the carrier signal, and d(t) is the data
signal. The transmitted signal s(t) can be written as:
s(t) = Ad(t) cos(wct) (22)
and the received signal r(t) is given by:
r(t) = s(t − τ ) + n(t) 
where τ is the propagation delay from the transmitter to
the receiver and n(t) represents noise interference. We
derived r(t) as:
r(t) = Ad(t − τ ) cos(wct - wc τ ) 
where the propagation delay-induced carrier shift is
given by θ = −wcτ. Then, we obtain:
350
Due to multipath dispersion, the phase of the signal shift
is transformed to signal distortion, and delayed signals
from one symbol may interfere with the next signal,
giving rise to ISI.
4.2 RMS Delay Spread
Root mean square (RMS) delay spread is probably the
most important single measurement to determine the
extent of delay time in a multipath propagation channel,
and is commonly used to quantify multipath effects.
The RMS delay spread τRMS from [14] is given as follows:
N LED
1
 RMS =
PT
∑ Pi i 2
−  0 2 (26)
where τ0 is the mean delay, given by:
N LED
1
0 =
PT
∑ Pi i  (27)
In the above equations, Pi is the received optical power
from any LED, τi is the delay of any ray relative to the
earliest arriving ray, and PT is the total received optical
power. The delay profile is the expected power per unit of
time received with a certain excess delay and is obtained
by averaging a large set of impulse responses.
5. THEORETICAL ANALYSIS AND SIMULATION
RESULTS
5.1 Proposed Model Description
VLC is a kind of OW communication using visible light
as the medium of data transmission. Usually, white LED
lights are used with a VLC as transmitter, and its properties
have been illustrated in [15,16]. Moreover, intensity
modulation with direct detection (IM/DD) is the only
practical transmission scheme for OW communication,
which completes the conversion between the electrical
signal and the optical signal. In our proposed indoor
VLC model system shown in Figure 4, the distributed
LED fixtures were located around the center of the ceiling
[at coordinates (0,0)] and pointed straight down, and the
receiver was placed at the floor [in the (x,y) plane]. In this
(23) model, the walls and other obstacles, such as furniture,
acted as large reflecting surfaces; therefore, we could not
ignore the effect of multipath dispersion. In this case, the
total channel DC gain is a combination of a directed LOS
component and a diffuse component and can be written as:
(24) h ( t ) = h LOS ( t ) + h diff ( t − ∆T ) (28)
with contributions hLOS(t) due to the directed LOS signal
and hdiff(t − ΔT) due to diffuse reflections. ΔT describes
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 Yi Y, et al.: Adaptive MMSE Equalizer for Optical Multipath Dispersion in Indoor VLC

the delay time between the LOS signal and reflection Pr = H (0 )· Pt  (32)
signal. We only considered the optical signal reflections
from walls, thus the received optical power Pr includes where H(0) represents total channel DC gain. The
directed path Hd(0) arrived optical power and reflected total variance Ntotal of interference is the sum of the
path Href(0) arrived optical power such that : contributions from ambient light noise and ISI induced
LEDs Walls
by multipath dispersion such that:
Pr = ∑ { P H (0) + ∑ P H
t d t ref (0 )}  (29)
(-4, 4) (4, 4)
where Pt is the transmitted optical power, Hd(0) is given
by equation (1), and the diffuse channel DC gain Href(0)
on the first reflection [16,17] is given by:
LEDs

n+1
H ref (0 ) = ( )ρ A
2π 2
y[m] (0, 0)
cos − n (φ ) cos(α )cos( β ) cos ψ
∫wall D1 2 D1 2  (30)

where D1 is the distance between an LED’s fixture

and a reflective point, D2 is the distance between that
reflective point and the receiver, ρ is the reflectivity
of plaster walls, dAwall is a reflecting surface element, (-4, -4) (4, -4)
x[m]
Ø is the angle of irradiance to the reflective point, α is
the angle of incidence to the reflective point, β is the Figure 4: Four LED fixtures distributed in a model room. The
angle of irradiance to the receiver, and ψ is the angle room size is 8×8×3 m, the center of the room is point (0,0)
of incidence to the receiver. Figure 5 illustrates the in x–y plane.
concepts of the diffuse optical channel model. The range
Ceiling
of the transmitted power of the white LED lights is from
200 mW to 1.2 W, as an indoor environment lighting LED
application. An LED light of 400 mW is commonly Ø
employed in a comparatively big room. Furthermore, Background
Light
from the analysis above, the simulation parameters listed Wall
in Table 1 were used. Figure 6 shows the distribution of D1
received optical power of the directed LOS lights; the
received optical power was −33 dBm to −27.2 dBm in all Diffuse Directed
α
areas of the room. Figure 7 shows the distribution of the Reflection LOS
received optical power composed of both directed LOS Element dA β
light and diffuse reflection light from walls; the received
D2

optical power was −29.8 dBm to −25.2 dBm. Comparing

ψ
Figures 6 and 7, the received average power including
Receiver
reflection is nearly 3 dBm larger than that of directed LOS
light only. Therefore, the large amounts of light reflected
Figure 5: Propagation model of diffuse optical channel.
by walls influence the optical propagation performance.
Usually, multipath ISI is caused by a delayed signal to
Table 1: Conditions for the analysis shown in Figures 6–9
the directed arriving signal, where the optical power of
Room size 8 × 8 × 3 (m3)
the delayed signal is treated as interference in high data
Transmitted optical power of each LEDs fixture 400 (mW)
rate transmission systems.
Number of LED lights 4
Semi-angle at half power 60 (deg.)
The optical power by reflected signals P rISI at the
Detector physical area of a PD 1.0 (cm2)
receiver is:
Reflectivity of plaster walls, ρ 0.7
LEDs The receiver FOV 180 (deg.)
PrISI = ∑ Pt ⊗ h i ( t )  (31) Data rate 400 (Mbit/s)
i =1
Background light noise 0 (dBm)
where h(t) describes the multipath dispersion, and Pr is O/E conv. efficiency, r (A/W) 0.53 (A/W)
the received optical power derived by: LED – Light emitting diode; FOV – Field of view; PD – Photo detector

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 Yi Y, et al.: Adaptive MMSE Equalizer for Optical Multipath Dispersion in Indoor VLC
N total = N 0 R b + (rPrISI )
2

(33)
The electrical signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio
(SINR) at the receiver is expressed as:
r 2 Pr 2
SINR =  (34)
Ntotal
The ambient light noise is usually modeled as a Gaussian
process [18]. In order to minimize the influence of ambient
light noise in our simulations, we assumed the background
light noise to be 0 dBm (0 dBm is 1 mW) and a high rate
data transmission of 400 Mbit/s, with an O/E conversion
efficiency r of 0.53 A/W. The distribution of the SINR
is shown in Figures 8 and 9. Figure 8 shows the SINR
distribution of the directed light, and there is less reflected
signal in the directed light model; therefore, we can ignore
multipath interference. The SINR distribution is from −2.2
dB to 9.2 dB in the entire room. In our proposed 400 Mbit/s
high data rate transmission system, the delay time is usually
Figure 6: The distribution of received power: max. −27.2
dBm, min. −33 dBm, and avg. −28.8 dBm.
Figure 8: The distribution of the SINR with directed LOS
light: max. 9.2 dB, min. −2.2 dB, avg. 6.2 dB.
352
larger than symbol duration; in this case, the power of
reflected signals is always treated as interference. Figure 9
shows the SINR distribution including reflected light; the
SINR distribution is from −7.7 dB to 4.2 dB. The average
SINR is about 5.6 dB smaller than that of the directed
LOS model. Therefore, we can conclude that the reflected
signals have a significant influence on the performance at
400 Mbit/s and cause severe optical multipath dispersion.
5.2 Diffuse Channel Bit Error Rate Performance
The so-called multi-chip white LED described in [15]
consists of three LED chips. Each chip emits one primary
color, thus the three LED chips emit three colors (red,
green, and blue) of light simultaneously. The visible
light from an LED is fabricated by mixing red, green,
and blue light. For our proposed system, we chose type
IV white LEDs as were also used in [12]; the parameters
of these LEDs are shown in Table 2 and were calculated
experimentally. From Table 2, it is clear that different
Figure 7: The distribution of received power with reflections:
max. −25.2 dBm, min. −29.8 dBm, and avg. −26.2 dBm.
Figure 9: The distribution of SINR with combination of LOS light
and reflected lights: max. 4.14 dB, min. −7.7 dB, avg. 0.5 dB.
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 Yi Y, et al.: Adaptive MMSE Equalizer for Optical Multipath Dispersion in Indoor VLC
colored lights have different wavelengths, and that
the optical power of each color chip of a white LED
was different from that of the others. This is due to the
mixture ratio of the three primary colors which is not
equal, even if the total transmission power is fixed.
Thereby, wavelength division multiplex (WDM) was
used for optical multiplexing [19]. The SNR of each color
of light was different in the respective sub-channels of
the demultiplexer (DMUX) that we chose for WDM.
Based on [15], we derived the SINR of each color light
transmission sub-channel by the received optical power
at PD as follows:
Pr K red
3 R red .( )2
K red + K green + K blue
SINRred =
qPbg Rb + 3( Rred .Pr ISI )2
Pr K red
3 R red .( )2
K red + K green + K blue
SINRgreen =
Pr ISI )2
qPbg Rb + 3( Rgreen .P
Pr K red
3 R red .( )2
K red + K green + K blue
SINRblue =
qPbg Rb + 3( Rblue .Pr ISI )2
where Pr is the total optical power received at the
receiver, Kred, Kgreen, and Kblue represent the mixture ratios
of the three colored lights, and Rred, Rgreen, and Rblue are
the O/E conversion efficiencies of the respective light
colors. Because there were three parallel transmission
sub-channels, the transmission data rate of each sub-
channel was one-third of the total data rate Rb.
Regarding the multipath dispersion h(t) as mentioned
in equation (31), the exponential decay model is a
viable, simple, and tractable way to measure multipath
dispersion [20], which we adopt for our experimental
diffuse channel, as follows:
1 −t
h e (t ,  ) = exp( u(t ) 
 
The RMS delay spread was derived by the parameter
τ, equal to:`
D( he (t ,  )) =  / 2 
The RMS delay spread is used to measure the effect of
multipath dispersion. The adaptive MMSE equalizer is
used to estimate the multipath channels and update the
weights. In our simulations, we assume that the number
of the equalizer tap is 11 and SINR at the receiver is 40 dB.
The data rate is 400 Mbit/s from Table 1, and sampling
rate of the equalizer is 2 GHz. The forgetting factor λ of
RLS algorithm can determine the tradeoff between the
IETE JOURNAL OF RESEARCH | VOL 58 | ISSUE 5 | SEP-OCT 2012
convergence rate and algorithm accuracy. The optimum
value of λ should be chosen from 0.97 to 0.99 [21], so we
chose λ of 0.98 in our simulations. As for LMS algorithm,
small step size α means a stable performance, but at the
expense of a low convergence rate. Base on the prior
studies, we define α as 0.1 in our simulations. We adopt
the MSE ratio below, which is defined as the ratio
between MSE of the steady state and that of the training
period, in order to evaluate the tracking performance of
LMS and RLS, respectively.
MSE ratio = 10 × lg( MSEtracking / MSEtraining )  (40)
Figure 10 shows the comparison of the tracking
performance of LMS and RLS, under an increasing RMS
 (35)
delay spread. As indicated, the RLS algorithm is more
effective in tracking the channel impulse response than
the LMS algorithm.
 (36) In the following simulations, based on the parameters
listed in Tables 1 and 2, we considered the effect of
multipath dispersion at RMS delay spread times of 2 ns,
2.5 ns, and 10 ns. Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) was
adopted as the modulation scheme in the equalization
 (37) system, and on–off keying (OOK) was chosen as the non-
equalization system for comparison with the equalization
systems. Figures 11–13 show the simulation Bit Error
Rate (BER) results. It is clear from Figure 11 that the
OOK system showed a better BER performance than
BPSK systems even if equalization was used, though RLS
Table 2: Parameters for the physical qualities of type IV
LED light
Red Green Blue
Wavelength (nm) 610 565 450
Mixture ratio 1 11.17 7.19
O/E conv. efficiency (A/W) 0.52 0.48 0.4
LED – Light emitting diode
(38)
(39)
Figure 10: Comparison of the tracking performance of LMS
and RLS.
353
 Yi Y, et al.: Adaptive MMSE Equalizer for Optical Multipath Dispersion in Indoor VLC
Figure 11: BER performance versus total received optical
power for the OOK-non-equalization and BPSK-equalization
systems; RMS delay spread = 2 ns.
Figure 12: BER performance versus total received optical
power for the OOK-non-equalization and BPSK-equalization
systems; RMS delay spread = 2.5 ns.
Figure 13: BER performance versus total received optical
power for the OOK-non-equalization and BPSK-equalization
systems; RMS delay spread = 10 ns.
354
has a relatively better performance than LMS. Figure 11
demonstrates that OOK scheme has a better performance
than that of BPSK scheme in a less dispersive channel
(RMS delay spread is less than OOK symbol duration)
and equalizer can compensate the BER performance
penalty caused by multipath ISI. In order to illustrate
that an excellent modulation without equalization is
not enough to avoid the serious effects of multipath
dispersion, we show the simulations of our system with
larger RMS delay spread as seen in Figures 12 and 13.
From Figure 12, it is clear that when the RMS delay spread
was 2.5 ns and was equal to the value of the OOK signal
duration, the OOK scheme completely failed because
the multipath ISI, caused by the RMS delay spread, was
too severe. It means that the RMS delay spread has a
large impact on the BER performance as can be seen by
comparing Figures 11 and 12. In contrast, for this same
RMS delay spread, the equalization scheme alleviated the
influence of multipath dispersion and the RLS performed
better than the LMS. Thus, if the RMS delay spread is less
than the signal duration, OOK is an effective modulation
format; however, if the RMS delay spread is greater than
the signal duration, the non-equalization OOK scheme
fails [Figures 12 and 13].
In addition, with an increase in the total received optical
power, the equalization system can compensate for
performance degradation due to multipath dispersion,
even if the RMS delay spread is much larger, as shown
in Figure 13. The RLS algorithm exhibited excellent
BER performance as compared to the LMS algorithm.
Therefore, equalization has a distinct influence on
mitigating the effect of multipath dispersion, as illustrated
by the BER curves presented in Figures 12 and 13.
6. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we clarify the basic structure of an
indoor VLC system and solve the important problem
associated with diffuse channels, which is optical
multipath dispersion. This dispersion can cause
multipath ISI. To avoid serious multipath ISI, the data
rate is typically reduced. However, the equalization
technology employed in the proposed model can
ensure a high data rate and tolerate a higher degree of
multipath ISI. OOK was chosen as a non-equalization
modulation format for comparison to BPSK, which we
employed as an equalization scheme. Our simulation
results compared the non-equalization OOK scheme
with the BPSK-equalization scheme. OOK provides an
excellent modulation scheme in OW communication,
but its performance is not optimal under severe optical
multipath propagation which produces ISI. The
simulation results validated our claim that VLC using
equalization can indeed alleviate severe multipath ISI,
hence it is an effective and feasible method as shown
IETE JOURNAL OF RESEARCH | VOL 58 | ISSUE 5 | SEP-OCT 2012
 Yi Y, et al.: Adaptive MMSE Equalizer for Optical Multipath Dispersion in Indoor VLC
in our analysis and simulations. Finally, we further
proposed the RLS algorithm, and it was shown that the
RLS algorithm had a better BER performance than the
LMS algorithm.
7. acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Prof. Shinsuke Hara for his
review and excellent comments on this paper.
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AUTHORS
Ying Yi received the B.S degree in Information
Technology from HeBei Normal University, in HeBei
Province, China, and M.Eng. degrees from the
Department of Electronics and Radio Engineering,
Kyung Hee University, Korea, in 2008 and 2010,
respectively. Currently, he is a research associate with
Department of Electronics and Radio Engineering,
Kyung Hee University, Korea. Meanwhile, he is doing the projects for IT
Research and Development Program of the Korean Ministry of Knowledge
Economy and Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (MKE/KEIT)
as a researcher. His research interests are optical wireless communication
systems, Ad-hoc/Mesh network, and LTE.
E-mail: yiying@khu.ac.kr
Changping Li received the B.Eng degree in Biomedical
engineering from Jiamusi University, Hei Longjiang
province, China, in 2008. She is currently pursuing the
Ph.D. degree at Department of Electronics and Radio
Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Korea. Her current
research interests include: Diversity technology, Optical
wireless communication, OFDM and MC-CDMA.
E-mail: lichangping@khu.ac.kr
DOI: 10.4103/0377-2063.104150; Paper No JR 339_11; Copyright © 2012 by the IETE
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Kyesan Lee received a B.E. degree in electrical
engineering from Kyung Hee University in Korea and
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the department of
electrical engineering, Keio University, Yokohama,
Japan, in 1996, 1999, and 2002, respectively. He joined
KDDI R&D Laboratories Inc in 2002 and has received a
IEEE VTS Japan young researchers encouragement
award. Since 2003, he has been with the College of Electronic and Information,
Kyung Hee University, where he is a Professor. He received the excellent paper
award in 2009 IEEE ISCIT (International symposium on communication and
information technology). He has received the Prime minister award 2009.
He received also the minister award of ministry of education science and
technology in 2009. His research interests include wireless communication
networks, CDMA, OFDM, MC-CDMA, MC-DS/CDMA, MIMO, and Cognitive
radio and Visible light communication systems.
E-mail: kyesan@khu.ac.kr
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