A multi-layer VLC imaging system based on space-time trace-orthogonal coding

In visible light communication (VLC) imaging systems, different properties of data are usually demanded for transmission with different priorities in terms of reliability and/or validity. For this consideration, a novel transmission scheme called space-time trace-orthogonal coding (STTOC) for VLC is proposed in this paper by taking full advantage of the characteristics of time-domain transmission and space-domain orthogonality. Then, several constellation designs for different priority strategies subject to the total power constraint are presented. One significant advantage of this novel scheme is that the inter-layer interference (ILI) can be eliminated completely and the computation complexity of maximum likelihood (ML) detection is linear. Computer simulations verify the correctness of our theoretical analysis, and demonstrate that both transmission rate and error performance of the proposed scheme greatly outperform the conventional multi-layer transmission system.