Long-range visible light communication system based on LED collimating lens

• We proposed a long-range VLC system for special occasion, such as marine communication.
• We design and optimize a collimating lens for the optical antenna by using Taguchi method. The emitting angle of the optimized collimating lens is 1.7°.
• We rebuild a more accurate model of VLC link for long-range VLC.
• By integrating some simulation tools for the holistic evaluation, we present a simpler and more accurate way for visible light communication simulation.

An advanced visible light communication (VLC) system is proposed for long-range VLC, such as marine communication. The design of the system is conducted into two parts. Firstly, we design and optimize a collimating lens for the optical antenna by using Taguchi method. The lighting effects and optical power of the receiving end in different distances are simulated by TracePro software. Then, the long-range VLC channel is reconstructed by integrating the influence of the atmospheric attenuation and frequency response. The performance of the OOK coding VLC system is tested by Matlab software. The results show that: the emitting angle of the optimized collimating lens is 1.7°. By using 1 W LED and collimating lens as an optical antenna, the system can achieve a data rate of 210 Mbit/s at a bit error rate of 10−3 in 90 m.