6 kbit/s over 2.8 km transmission for optical camera communication with a mobile phone

We demonstrate an experimental optical camera communication (OCC) system with a mobile phone, in which 6 kbit/s transmission over 2.8 km is achieved. The transmitter utilizes a single white LED combined with a lens, while the receiver employs a mobile phone with a large-aperture lens for image capture. To achieve long-distance communication, challenges such as path loss, atmospheric turbulence, and limited camera sensitivity must be considered. The proposed scheme effectively mitigates these issues by incorporating large-aperture lenses and spatial diversity combining. Experimental results show that at a data rate of 6 kbit/s, the bit error rate (BER) remains below the hard decision forward error correction (HD-FEC) threshold, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method for high data rate, long-distance transmission.