FPGA-Based Implementation and Experimental Demonstration of a Vehicular VLC System

Amidst the widespread deployment of LED lighting in vehicles, visible light communications (VLC) has emerged as a promising solution for reliable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) connectivity. This paper presents an FPGA-based design and implementation of a vehicular visible light communication (VLC) system employing On-Off Keying (OOK) modulation. The system uses a low-beam vehicular headlight as the wireless transmitter while the encoding, modulation, and demodulation modules are implemented on the Zynq-7000 series FPGA. At the receiver side, a 25.4 mm biconvex lens is utilized in front of the photodetector for received power improvement at longer distances. SNR, data rate, packet loss ratio, and BER results are shared from an extensive measurement campaign carried out in broad daylight conditions for up to 20 m distance. The experimental results demonstrate promising data rates and signal-to-noise ratios at distances of up to 14 m, highlighting the potential of VLC-based solutions for short-range vehicular communication.