Zero Energy Visible Light Communication Receiver for Embedded Applications

Abstract

Internet of Things is bringing multiple domains and multiple av-enues to connect anything and everything. It mainly uses RF con-nectivity. However, recently visible light communication (VLC) isalso being explored. VLC has the properties that are unique withrespect to the privacy and security that it provides. Though thetransmission is of broadcast in nature the receiver needs to be inthe vicinity of the transmitter, thus providing secure communica-tions. Further, when low power receivers need to be constructed,it is important to harness energy from transmission itself. In thisarticle we propose a novel design for a receiver to be used in VLCfor embedded systems. The setup works, using a small solar panel(2mm x 2mm) as a medium to simultaneously harvest incident lightenergy and receive data bit streams. The LED source was modulatedusing On-Off Keying. The receiver works for close range commu-nications. The results in this paper show experimental evaluationof the system. We could detect the signals from the source usingharvested energy from the same transmission.