Uplink of Visible Light Communication Enabled by

Receiving Ultrasonic Beamforming

Ming Che

arXiv (arXiv: 2401.05389v1)

Generated on April 13, 2025

Abstract
We propose a method that uses inaudible ultrasonic waves to address the issue of uplink transmission
in visible light communication. Our scheme, which applies frequency-shift keying modulation and
receive beamforming by a microphone array, has been experimentally confirmed. This system has an
adjustable receiving direction to enhance the anti-interference ability of uplink transmission, and it
meets the asymmetric requirements of uplink and downlink service bandwidth for Internet services.

Uplink of Visible Light Communication Enabled by Receiving Ultrasonic Beamforming Ming Che
Abstract We propose a method that uses inaudible ultrasonic waves to address the issue of uplink
transmission in visible light communication. Our scheme, which applies frequency-shift keying
modulation and receive beamforming by a microphone array, has been experimentally confirmed. This
system has an adjustable receiving direction to enhance the anti-interference ability of uplink
transmission, and it meets the asymmetric requirements of uplink and downlink service bandwidth for
Internet services. 1 Introduction The bi-directional transmission of visible light communication (VLC)
has been a challenge for engineers for a long time. Without an effective uplink solution, the application
scope of visible light communi- cation will be limited, only allowing for one-way transmission of audio
and video data or broadcast communication. Consequently, the successful implementation of a
two-way visible light communication is necessary for a wireless internet experience, with the uplink
being an essential aspect. Komine et al. proposed a bi-directional transmission solution using a corner
cube retro-reflector in 2003, however, this method was limited in terms of transmission rate and
modulation bandwidth [1]. Currently, there are many radio frequency based solutions such as WiFi,
Bluetooth and ZigBee, however, these are not suitable to be used in places where radio frequency is
prohibited, like hospitals and airplane cabins [2, 3, 4, 5]. Jaafar et al. proposed an infrared technology
based solution for uplink transmission, however, this too has its own limitations such as low
transmission rate and high directivity requirement [6, 7]. The use of all-optical bi-directional
transmission technology utilizes LED as a signal source to enable full duplex communication. Two
multiplexing technologies, time division duplexing (TDD) and frequency division duplexing (FDD), are
commonly used to achieve this. TDD technology receives and transmits in different time slots and same
frequency band, and has been used by Liu et al [8]. to realize bidirectional transmission with OOK
modulation, achieving a data transmission rate of 2.5 Mbit/s. Meanwhile, Wang et al. used three
different wavelengths of RGB-LED for uplink and downlink data, with blue LED as the light source for
the downlink and red and green LED as the light source for the uplink. This FDD-based system
achieved an offline test throughput of 800 Mbit/s within 66 cm of free-space transmission [9, 10]. While
the uplink transmission scheme based on visible light is capable of higher transmission rates, its visible
light characteristics limit its application scenarios since uplink does not require illumination. This work
focuses on overcoming a persistent challenge in VLC - the difficulty of effective uplink transmission.
Traditional approaches have their limitations, so we have suggested non-audible audio signals and
microphone arrays for data reception as alternative solutions. 1arXiv:2401.05389v1 [eess.SP] 18 Dec
2023
2 Method and Demonstration As shown in Figure 1, this scheme is based on inaudible audio for uplink
transmission of VLC. We propose a scheme that uses frequency-shift keying (FSK) to modulate data,
and employs microphone array to process the received audio signal by digital beamforming algorithm.
As illustrated in Figure 2, three audio signals come from three different directions, −10■,−30■and 20■.
The linear microphone array consists of 10 omni-directional radiating microphones with 0.05-meter
distance between adjacent microphones. Simulation results show that frost beamformer can effectively
distinguish the uplink sound source. Figure 1: Application scenarios using ultrasound for uplinking
visible light communications. Figure 2: The diagram on uplink transmission based on digital acoustic
beam-forming using a micro- phone array. According to tests, the frequency range of sound waves that
can be heard by humans is 100 Hz to 15 kHz. For example, Apple’s earphones have a response
frequency from 5 Hz to 21 kHz [11]. This margin for inaudible frequencies can be used to transmit
uplink data. To demonstrate this in a prototype verification experiment, four audible frequencies (0.5
kHz, 1.5 kHz, 2.5 kHz and 3.5 kHz) were used as carrier signals for 4-FSK, as seen in Figure 3(a). The
composite signal, which included data and interference signals, were received by 10 microphones and
the data signal was recovered. The results show that the data signal was successfully recovered by
beam-forming microphone arrays, as seen in Figure 3(b). 2
(a) (b) Figure 3: (a) The transmitted waveform of data, interference 1 and 2, (b) the composite
waveform for audio source, the waveform received by each microphone, and recovered data signal by
digital beamforming algorithm. Besides of capability without interference with downlink light, this
technology can realize asym- metric uplink and downlink service bandwidth for Internet. Due to the
users’ internet habits, in most cases, the ratio of downlink bandwidth to uplink can reach a ratio of 10:1.
Thus, it is reasonable for using this technique to solve the uplink scheme of visible light communication.
3 Conclusion This paper examines the difficulties encountered in accomplishing successful uplink
transmission in VLC. Conventional techniques, such as physical reflectors or radio frequency
technology, have their own drawbacks. To address this issue, an alternative scheme is proposed which
employs inaudible audio signals for uplink transmission, with the aid of FSK modulation and a
microphone array with beam- forming algorithm to modulate and receive data, respectively. By taking
advantage of the frequency margin which is not audible in general electronic product players, data
transmission has been success- fully achieved. This method not only eliminates interference with
downlink light, but also provides asymmetric uplink and downlink service bandwidth, which is in line
with user’s internet habits. 3
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