ENABLING DATA COMMUNICATION OVER SOLAR PV CELLS
Advisor- Dr. Abhijit Mitra
Co-advisors- Prof. Anand Srivastava & Prof. G.S.Visweswaran
Abstract
Visual Light Communication (VLC) can achieve
technologies which are easy to deploy, provide high data
rate communication and enable dense network
connectivity at low cost since it uses off-the-shelf Light
Emitting Diode (LEDs) which are widely deployed and
provide high bandwidth. In our proposed VLC system,
while using an off-the-shelf LED as a light source, we
demonstrate data communication using a Photo Voltaic
(PV) organic solar cell as the photo detector. In this paper
a receiver is designed to establish a solar communication
system and achieve the maximum possible data rate
using On-O Keying (OOK) modulation scheme. This
project is likely to have a strong impact in enabling Rural
Communication and Internet of Things (IOT) area.
Introduction
• Global data consumption is now increasing at a rapid
rate. In 2016 itself, mobile data consumption grew by
nearly 63% and is expected to increase 7-folds
between 2016-21.
• VLC can handle the demanding 5G system
requirements for high capacity, high data rate, high
spectral and energy efficiency, low battery
consumption, and low latency.
• We have chosen organic Photovoltaic (PV) cells as
photodetector to establish a solar based VLC system
using an of-the-shelf LED as light source. This system
has henceforth be referred as SolarComm.
• Due to growing global need to move to renewable
energy sources, the deployment cost of solar panels
has decreased. This can have strong implications in
both the rural and the urban telecom markets for data
communication.
• An appreciable data rate of 11.84 Mbps has already
been demonstrated for a received optical signal with a
peak-to-peak amplitude of 0.7*10-3 using a
polycrystalline panel.
Methodology
The LED was modulated using OOK modulation using
function generator. A square wave function of 10 Volts
peak-to-peak was fed to the LED whose modulation
bandwidth is 50 kHz. The intensity of light falling on the
PV cell was 370 lux. It is desirable to increase the peak
to peak voltage of the organic solar cell signal output. To
achieve this, an amplifier circuit was designed to amplify
the solar cell output to a few volts which was then fed to
the unipolar to bipolar signal converter( voltage shifter).
The rising edge represents ON or '1' and falling edge
represents OFF or '0'. Hence, it is important to capture
the sharp rise and fall of the shifted output to decide a '1'
or '0'. The signal output of the voltage shifter is fed to a
feedback comparator with bipolar reference voltage The
comparator ultimately captures the rising and the falling
edge of the received signal and the desired output is
obtained.
Arshan Zaman (2016136), Shivam Singh (2016196)
IIIT-Delhi
Receiver Design Conclusion & Future Work
Amplifier Design Unipolar to Bipolar Converter • Thus, using the present circuit design, establishment
The output from the organic cell in the designed setup The unipolar amplified output from the INA111 amplifier had 3.3 of communication using PV cells up to 75 kHz has
was about 600 mV which needed to be amplified by an Vpp and ranges from 6.37 V to 9.66 V. To convert this into a been successfully achieved.
amplifier circuit.The amplifier selected was bipolar signal the circuit was designed. On implementation, the bi- • After this, recovery was not very close mainly
instrumentation amplifier INA111 for high frequency polar voltage obtained was from -1.69 V to 1.76 V because the signal obtained from uni-polar to bi-polar
operation. It has differential input with balanced input converter was not symmetrical at exact 0 level. This
impedances and is designed for much higher common Comparator circuit could be made possible after more fine-tuning of the
mode rejection ratio which is desirable for high frequency After bi-polar output was fed to comparator, the final step was to circuit.
operation. Gain is given by G=1+50k/Rg. The Rg was design the comparator circuit such that the rising and falling edge • This communication system can be considered a low
chosen such that the output from the amplifier was more was captured. The comparator selected here was LM319N which data rate system which has quite a few applications
than 3 Vpp. On choosing an Rg of 7.5 k-ohms, a peak to was a precision high speed dual comparator. and can be used in a variety of fields like IoT,
peak voltage of 3.3V (more than 3V) was obtained as establishing control signals in embedded systems,
output. indoor localisation, in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V)
communication etc.
• The modulation bandwidth of LED was limited to 50
kHz that is why our output at 150 kHz was distorted.
We need a LED that can be modulated at higher
frequencies.
• The organic solar cells could serve as a future
platform for present VLC receivers. Such receivers
could have great implications for the connectivity of
future smart devices, from sensor networks to smart
clothing.
• The next step will be to achieve higher data rate on
this solar cell communication system and operate it at
frequency of 500 kHz.
Results Acknowledgements
After it was verified that all the three subsystems were working satisfactorily through practical implementation as well as LTSpice
simulations, they were integrated to form the complete receiver circuit design. The output is a square wave function (which was the We would like to acknowledge Dr.Abhijit Mitra for
same function used to modulate the LED) ,it closely captures the transmitted OOK signal. The signal was recovered successfully till continuously guiding us throughout the work done in
25 kHz. After this, the frequency was increased, and it was seen that till 75 kHz, the signal was recovered closely implying that the this semester and keeping us constantly motivated to
entire developed setup works till a frequency of 75 kHz successfully. In the figures shown below, the yellow waveforms are the solar achieve results. We would also like to thank Prof. G.S.
panel outputs, and the green ones are the final rectified outputs at frequencies 50kHz, 75kHz, and 150kHz respectively. Visweswaran and Prof. Anand Srivastava for their
invaluable guidance and help in this project.
Contact Information:
Arshan Zaman- 8700258768
Shivam Singh- 8630694960
References
[1]Cisco White Papers, Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global
Output at 50 kHz Output at 75 kHz Distorted output at 150 kHz Mobile Data Trac
Forecast Update, CISCO Visual Networing Index
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