J. Opt. Commun.
2016; aop
Yong Chen*, Tengfei Li, Huanlin Liu and Yichao Li
Channel Model Optimization with Reflection
Residual Component for Indoor MIMO-VLC System
DOI 10.1515/joc-2016-0096
Received July 4, 2016; accepted August 16, 2016
Abstract: A fast channel modeling method is studied to
solve the problem of reflection channel gain for multiple
input multiple output-visible light communications
(MIMO-VLC) in the paper. For reducing the computational
complexity when associating with the reflection times, no
more than 3 reflections are taken into consideration in
VLC. We think that higher order reflection link consists of
corresponding many times line of sight link and firstly
present reflection residual component to characterize
higher reflection (more than 2 reflections). We perform
computer simulation results for point-to-point channel
impulse response, receiving optical power and receiving
signal to noise ratio. Based on theoretical analysis and
simulation results, the proposed method can effectively
reduce the computational complexity of higher order
reflection in channel modeling.
Keywords: visible light communications, channel model
optimization, indoor MIMO-VLC system
1 Introduction
LED visible light communication as a wireless short-
range system has many advantages, such as high rate,
large capacity, high sensitivity, and no electromagnetic
interference. Using MIMO technology can enhance the
performance of visible light communication system
[1, 2]. There are a few studies on channel model for
*Corresponding author: Yong Chen, Key Laboratory of Industrial
Internet of Things & Network Control, Minister of Education,
Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongqing,
400065, China, E-mail: chenyong@cqupt.edu.cn
Tengfei Li, Key Laboratory of Industrial Internet of Things & Network
Control, Minister of Education, Chongqing University of Posts and
Telecommunications, Chongqing, 400065, China
Huanlin Liu, Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology & Systems
Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongqing,
400065, China
Yichao Li, Key Laboratory of Industrial Internet of Things & Network
Control, Minister of Education, Chongqing University of Posts and
Telecommunications, Chongqing, 400065, China
MIMO-VLC. So, it is necessary to establish a more accu-
rate MIMO-VLC channel model.
Channel characteristic of indoor VLC multiple source
is different from the infrared communication channel, its
reflection pattern obeys a Lambertian diffuser [3]. Early
researches on VLC channel model are based on the infra-
red communication channel modeling experience. In 1979,
Gfeller and Bapst proposed firstly the indoor infrared
channel reflection model. In 1993, according to the reflec-
tion model, Barry extended a recursive channel model for
regular and empty room, which used Lambertian reflec-
tion model and included multiple reflected lights [4].
In 1997, Lopez-Hernandez presented a novel fast
DUSTIN algorithm to calculate multipath scattering [5–7].
In 2001, Komine put forward the indoor VLC system chan-
nel scheme, which was based on channel direct current
gain [8, 9]. In 2011, Barry et al. extended the recursive
channel model for VLC. Because of computational com-
plexity, it considered only up to three times reflection
[10, 11]. In 2014, Sarbazi and Uysal used the software
Zemax to trace ray and then obtained the channel impulse
response for VLC system, but it required specialized soft-
ware Zemax. To obtain MIMO-VLC channel impulse
response accurately, enough times reflections should be
adopted without commercial software Zemax [12, 13].
In the paper, a fast channel modeling method is
proposed by utilizing reflection residual component for
MIMO-VLC. High order reflection is composed of corre-
sponding many times direct light. For obtaining the k-th
reflection channel gain, we use reflection residual com-
ponent to represent the middle reflection. Simulation
results show that the proposed method can gain the fast
impulse response of channel and prove the presentation
of MIMO-VLC channel well.
2 Indoor visible communication
system model
Figure 1 shows a typical indoor visible light communica-
tion environment [1]: 5 m × 5 m × 3 m. The receiver is
placed 0.85 m above the ground. In the point to point
visible light communication, light travels from transmit-
ter to receiver through infinite time reflection.
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2 Y. Chen et al.: Channel Model Optimization

Z 2.2 Reflection channel DC gain

We considered the effect of reflective light by walls

Tx2 Tx3
and then calculate reflection channel direct circuit gain.
Reflection channel DC gain is calculated as

Tx1
X
∞
Tx4 Href ðt, kÞ = Hðt, kÞ (3)
k=1

Y
Where Hðt, kÞ means the k-th impulse response, and t
means delay of k-th reflection.
2.15 m

Receiver 5m 2.3 Receive optical power

(x,y,0.85)

5m The receiving optical power Pr of indoor VLC can be

X
obtained by direct channel gain Hð0, tÞ and reflection
Figure 1: A multi-source channel sketch for indoor VLC. channel DC gain Href ðt, kÞ in eq. (4).

Pr = Pt ½Hð0, tÞ + Href ðt, kÞ (4)

2.1 Direct circuit gain
In the visible light communication system, light path
consists of line-of-sight link and non-line-of-sight link 2.4 Receive SNR
between transmitter and receiver. According to direct
circuit (DC) for line-of-sight (LOS), Hð0, tÞ is expressed In the indoor visible light communication system, the
as intensity-modulated direct-detection (IM/DD) is used to
compute the receive SNR [7]. In the OOK modulation
8 scheme, we use light flicker to transmit information.
> ðm + 1ÞA
>
> cosm ð’ÞTs ðψÞgðψÞ
>
> 2πd 2 SNR can be determined by
>
<

d
Hð0, tÞ = cosðψÞδ t − for 0 ≤ ψ ≤ ψc γ2 PrSignal
2
>
> c SNR = (5)
>
> σ2shot + σ 2thermal + γ2 PrISI
2
>
>
:
0 for ψ > ψc
where γ is the photoelectric conversion factor, PrSignal is
(1)
the received signal power, PrISI is the received power of
− ln 2
where m = is the order of Lambertian emission, inter symbol interference, σ2shot is shot noise variance,
ln cos ϕ1=2
σ2thermal is thermal noise variance.
ϕ1=2 is the semi-angle at half illuminance of a LED, A
denotes the physical area of the detector in a receiver,
d is the distance between a transmitter and a receiver,
φ denotes the angle of irradiance, ψ denotes the angle of 3 MIMO-VLC channel response
incidence, Ts ðψÞ is the gain of an optical filter, gðψÞ is the
gain of an optical concentrator, ψc denotes the width of
impulse
the field of view at a receiver, δðtÞ is the unit impulse
Barry’s recursive model is that high order reflection can
function, and c is the light speed. The optical concentra-
be obtained by the low order reflection recursions.
tor g ðψÞ can be given as
However, the computational complexity will increase
8 while the increasing of reflection times. To reduce com-
>
< n2
for 0 ≤ ψ ≤ ψc plexity, more than 3 times reflections are ignored.
gðψÞ = sin2 ψc (2)
>
: To obtain channel impulse response for MIMO-VLC, we
0 for ψ ≥ ψc
proposed a new method to optimize the model of point to
where n means the refraction index. point channel with reflection residual component.

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 Y. Chen et al.: Channel Model Optimization 3

ð
3.1 Point to point channel impulse response ðm + 1ÞA
Hð1, tÞ = cosm + 1 ð900 − αÞ
2π 2 d211 d212
Awall
We set ðX, Y, ZÞ as transmitter position and ðx, y, zÞ as


receiver position. The distance between transmitter and d11 + d12
× cos α × Ts ðψÞgðψÞδ τ − dAwall
receiver can be stated as c
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð
ðm + 1ÞA m + 1
d = ðX − xÞ2 + ðY − yÞ2 + ðZ − zÞ2 (6) = sin ðαÞ cos αTs ðψÞgðψÞ
2π 2 d211 d212
Awall
The received optical power is gradually reducing

while reflection times increase. Although higher order d11 + d12
δ τ− dAwall
reflection has litter energy, we cannot ignore it. First- c
order reflection, from the light source through the (10)
reflection point to the receiving point, can be presented We use the reflection residual component to achieve
in Figure 2. higher order reflection (more than two times) response.
The reflection residual component is defined as the
Transimitter reflection residual light from first reflector to last reflec-
tor. In Figure 3, d22 is reflection residual light, it is not
H 11 (1, t ) φ
connected directly by transmitter and receiver. As reflec-
tion times increase, the distance increases between
the first reflector and the last reflector, the power of
reflection residual light should be decreased. When
Firstre flection

reflection times tend to infinite, reflection residual com-

α
ponent is near to 0. Reflection residual component can
β
be expressed by

H 12 (1, t )
Transmitter
ψ 21
H (2, t ) φ
Receiver

Figure 2: Sketch of first-order reflection. α

First Second
reflector H 22(2, t )
reflector
First-order reflection is given in eq. (1), which can be
generated by H 11 ð1, tÞ and H 12 ð1, tÞcomponent. H 23(2, t )

Hð1, tÞ = H 11 ð1, tÞ × H 12 ð1, tÞ (7) ψ

Where H 11 ð1, tÞ means the channel impulse response from Receiver

the light source to the first reflection point; H 12 ð1, tÞ Figure 3: Sketch of second-order reflection.
means the channel impulse response in the last section
of reflection. H 11 ð1, tÞ and H 12 ð1, tÞ is defined as follows
respectively. lim f ðρ, k, dÞ = 0 (11)
k!∞
ðm + 1ÞdAwall
H 11 ð1, tÞ = cosm ð900 − αÞ cos α (8) where ρ is reflection coefficient, k is reflection order, d is
2πd211
reflecting distance, and f ðρ, k, dÞ is reflection residual
ρA component. f ðρ, k, dÞ is defined as
H 12 ð1, tÞ = Ts ðψÞgðψÞ sinðαÞ (9)
πd212
kQ
−1
C ρ1i
Therefore, according to eqs (8) and (9), we can derive the i=1
f ðρ, k, dÞ = (12)
first-order reflection impulse response. d2

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4 Y. Chen et al.: Channel Model Optimization

where C is correction factor, ρ1i means i-th reflection 4 Simulation and analysis
coefficient, which can be decided by the layout of the
room, light source and the receiver.
In Figure 3, ray d22 is regarded as residual component 4.1 The simulation scenario
H ð2, tÞ. The second reflection channel impulse response
22

is shown as The performance of proposed method is simulated by

ð Microsoft Visual c++. The default parameters in our simu-
ðm + 1ÞA
Hð2, tÞ = f ðρ, 2, dÞsinm + 1 ðαÞ cos α lation are shown in Table 1.
2π 2 d221 d222 d223
Awall
(13)


d21 + d22 + d23 Table 1: Default parameters in simulation.
× Ts ðψÞgðψÞδ τ − dAwall
c
Simulation parameters Value
Based on the above analytic derivation, we obtained
the k-th impulse response. The k-th impulse response is Semi-angle at half power  [deg.]
Center luminous intensity .[cd]
expressed by
Transmitted optical power  [mW]
ð FOV at a receiver  [deg.]
ðm + 1ÞA
Hðk, tÞ = sinm + 1 ðαÞ cos α × f ðρ, k, dÞ O/E conversion efficiency .
2π 2 d2k, 1 d2k, 2 d2k, k + 1
Awall Detector physical area of a PD . [cm]

 Refractive index of a lens at a PD .
dk, 1 + dk, 2 + ... + dk, k + 1
× Ts ðψÞgðψÞδ τ − dAwall
c
(14)
4.2 Simulation result and analysis
where dk, k + 1 means the k + 1-th direct light distance of the
k-th refection. The default parameters in simulation are listed in Table 1.
It is known that the temporal dispersion of channel
impulse response can be expressed by the channel root
3.2 Multipoint-to-point channel impulse mean square (RMS) delay. In Figure 4, we can find that
response first-order reflection channel impulse response of the
multi-point to point has different peaks value as time
The light travels from different transmitter to same recei- varies from 2.82 ns to 5.1 ns.
ver, which can produce light path difference. On the
receiver plane, the channel impulse response is given as
x 10–6 one order reflection response


impulse response

X
NLED
di
HðtÞ = Hi ðtÞδ t − (15) 2
i=1
c
1
where Hi ðtÞ is the i-th LED impulse response, di is the i-th
optical path from LED to receiver. 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
t(s) x 10–8

3.3 Multipoint-to-multipoint channel Figure 4: First-order reflection response.

impulse response
For the indoor MIMO-VLC, it is not required that the
transmitter and receiver are symmetry, which means the
number of transmitters and receivers are different, so
points on receiving surface can be handled separately.
We can get channel impulse response of receiving surface
point and impulse response. Furthermore, we can obtain
the receiving optical power and SNR.
Figure 5 shows the distribution of received power of
directed light from LED lights, the received power is
0.75 dB to 4.8 dB in all the places of the room. The
received power can make broadband communication
possible. When the reflection residual component is
introduced in the indoor VLC system, the received
power of room corner is suitable for illumination and
communication.

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10
Power [dB]
Received
5 of Chongqing (cstc2015jcyjA40024), and by Chongqing
0
6 (CYS15172).
4 4
2 2
0 0 1
Y[m] X[m]
Figure 5: Received optical power distribution.
40
20
SNR
0
–20
5 3. Cheng R, Yan X. Indoor multisource channel characteristic for
4 5
3 4
2 2
1 1
0 0
Y[m] X[m]
Figure 6: Received SNR distribution.
The received SNR distribution is shown in Figure 6. The
value of signal to noise ratio in the room center is larger,
which is more suitable for placing receiver. And the
difference of SNR obtained by the optimized model is
not more than 18 dB, so it can help to improve the com-
munication quality and reduces the bit error rate.
5 Conclusion
For addressing the problem of computational complexity
of high order impulse response in MIMO-VLC system, we
think that high order reflection link consists of corre-
sponding many times line of sight link. The reflection
residual component is presented to characterize higher
order reflection. Simulation results show that there is
almost no difference from traditional methods. However,
the proposed method can effectively reduce the complex-
ity and calculate any order channel impulse response.
A novel and quick method for the MIMO-VLC communi-
cation channel modeling is put forward to estimate the
channel features perfectly, which helps to realize the
design of indoor MIMO-VLC system at Gbps speed.
Y. Chen et al.: Channel Model Optimization 5
Acknowledgements: This research was funded by the
National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC
61275077), by the Basic and Frontier Research Program
Graduate Student Science Research Innovation of China
5
3
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