Smart Traffic Light Controller using Visible Light Communications

We develop a low-cost visible light communication (VLC) framework that can be used for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). The framework is composed of low-cost transceivers, a transmitter circuitry with embedded systems and optical electronics, and the receiver circuitry comprised of photodiodes along with other circuitry used for detecting and decoding the VLC signal coming from the traffic lights. We have conducted actual experimentation in a laboratory setting using a traffic light prototype to test the VLC framework in action. We studied the bit-error-rate (BER) versus signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio at a 30 m distance. Experimental studies show that at an SNR of 16 dB the proposed VLC system can achieve a BER of about $10 ^{-6}$.