Isamu Takai

Image-sensor-based visible light communication for automotive applications

The present article introduces VLC for automotive applications using an image sensor. In particular, V2I-VLC and V2V-VLC are presented. While previous studies have documented the effectiveness of V2I and V2V communication using radio technology in terms of improving automotive safety, in the present article, we identify characteristics unique to image-sensor-based VLC as compared to radio wave technology. The two primary advantages of a VLC system are its line-of-sight feature and an image sensor that not only provides VLC functions, but also the potential vehicle safety applications made possible by image and video processing. Herein, we present two ongoing image-sensor-based V2I-VLC and V2VVLC projects. In the first, a transmitter using an LED array (which is assumed to be an LED traffic light) and a receiver using a high-framerate CMOS image sensor camera is introduced as a potential V2I-VLC system. For this system, real-time transmission of the audio signal has been confirmed through a field trial. In the second project, we introduce a newly developed CMOS image sensor capable of receiving highspeed optical signals and demonstrate its effectiveness through a V2V communication field trial. In experiments, due to the high-speed signal reception capability of the camera receiver using the developed image sensor, a data transmission rate of 10 Mb/s has been achieved, and image (320 × 240, color) reception has been confirmed together with simultaneous reception of various internal vehicle data, such as vehicle ID and speed.

LED and CMOS Image Sensor Based Optical Wireless Communication System for Automotive Applications

An optical wireless communication (OWC) system based on a light-emitting-diode (LED) transmitter and a camera receiver has been developed for use in the automotive area. The automotive OWC system will require Mb/s-class data rates and the ability to quickly detect LEDs from an image. The key to achieving this is improvements to the capabilities of the image sensor mounted on the camera receiver. In this paper, we report on a novel OWC system equipped with an optical communication image sensor (OCI), which is newly developed using CMOS technology. To obtain higher transmission rates, the OCI employs a specialized “communication pixel (CPx)” capable of responding promptly to optical intensity variations. Furthermore, a new quick LED detection technique, based on a 1-bit flag image which only reacts to high-intensity objects, is formulated. The communication pixels, ordinary image pixels, and associated circuits (including 1-bit flag image output circuits) are then integrated into the OCI. This paper describes the design, fabrication, and capabilities of the OCI, as well as the development of the LED and image sensor based OWC system, which boasts a 20-Mb/s/pixel data rate without LED detection and a 15-Mb/s/pixel data rate with a 16.6-ms real-time LED detection.

Optical Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication System Using LED Transmitter and Camera Receiver

This paper introduces an optical vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication system based on an optical wireless communication technology using an LED transmitter and a camera receiver, which employs a special CMOS image sensor, i.e, an optical communication image sensor (OCI). The OCI has a “communication pixel (CPx)” that can promptly respond to light intensity variations and an output circuit of a “flag image” in which only high-intensity light sources, such as LEDs, have emerged. The OCI that employs these two technologies provides capabilities for a 10-Mb/s optical signal reception and real-time LED detection to the camera receiver. The optical V2V communication system consisting of the LED transmitters mounted on a leading vehicle and the camera receiver mounted on a following vehicle is constructed, and various experiments are conducted under real driving and outdoor lighting conditions. Due to the LED detection method using the flag image, the camera receiver correctly detects LEDs, in real time, in challenging outdoor conditions. Furthermore, between two vehicles, various vehicle internal data (such as speed) and image data (320 × 240, color) are transmitted successfully, and the 13.0-fps image data reception is achieved while driving outside.

A New Automotive VLC System Using Optical Communication Image Sensor

As a new technology for next-generation vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, visible-light communication (VLC) using light-emitting diode (LED) transmitters and camera receivers has been energetically studied. Toward the future in which vehicles are connected anytime and anywhere by optical signals, the cutting-edge camera receiver employing a special CMOS image sensor, i.e., the optical communication image sensor (OCI), has been prototyped, and an optical V2V communication system applying this OCI-based camera receiver has already demonstrated 10-Mb/s optical signal transmission between real vehicles during outside driving. In this paper, to reach a transmission performance of 54 Mb/s, which is standardized as the maximum data rate in IEEE 802.11p for V2X communication, a more advanced OCI-based automotive VLC system is described. By introducing optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (opticalOFDM), the new system achieves a more than fivefold higher data rate. Additionally, the frequency response characteristics and circuit noise of the OCI are closely analyzed and taken into account in the signal design. Furthermore, the forward-current limitation of an actual LED is also considered for long operational reliability, i.e., the LED is not operated in overdrive. Bit-error-rate experiments verify a system performance of 45 Mb/s without bit errors and 55 Mb/s with BER <; 10-5.

A CMOS image sensor for 10Mb/s 70m-range LED-based spatial optical communication

Spatial optical communication has recently been of interest in the mobile local-area communication systems, especially in the automotive applications. It has many advantages over the radio communication such as robustness to jamming, human safety due to lack of electromagnetic waves and sender finding function. The image sensor communication (ISC) technology is useful for the spatial optical communication because to find the light source and to intensify the light energy density at the receiver, the optical receiver has to have signal light source finding and tracking functions. A few approaches for the ISC have been reported. CMOS ISC chips have been used for ID beacon detection [1] [2], where very low data rate is required. In an ISC chip for optical wireless LAN application [3], the data rate of several hundreds of MHz has been demonstrated. In this approach, however, photo-diode current of a 2-D detector array directly flows into external receiver circuits, and because of this, extremely large optical power using laser lights is required. The authors have reported an ISC chip for LED-light communications [4]. In this chip, the bit rate of 1Mb/s and the communication range of a few meters only have been demonstrated. Though the chip claims the function of signal light source tracking, no experimental results have been shown. This paper presents a CMOS ISC chip which demonstrates that the high-speed long-distance spatial optical communication over 10Mb/s and 50meters are realized for the system using LED light sources while attaining signal-light finding and tracking functions. The key techniques to improve the data rate and tracking performance are a new pixel structure using depleted diode, pulse equalizing, and binary flag image readout to find the exact area of light source.

A CMOS imager and 2-D light pulse receiver array for spatial optical communication

This paper presents a CMOS imager and 2-D Light Pulse Receiver (LPR) array for car-to-car and road-to-car spatial optical communication. Using the prototype sensor with 640×240 image pixels and 640×240 LPR cells implemented with 0.18μm CMOS technology. Both imaging and 60fps optical communication at the carrier frequency of 1MHz are successfully performed. The measured signal amplitude and the calculation results of photocurrent shows that the spatial optical communication up to 100m is possible.

Single-Photon Avalanche Diode with Enhanced NIR-Sensitivity for Automotive LIDAR Systems

A single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) with enhanced near-infrared (NIR) sensitivity has been developed, based on 0.18 μm CMOS technology, for use in future automotive light detection and ranging (LIDAR) systems. The newly proposed SPAD operating in Geiger mode achieves a high NIR photon detection efficiency (PDE) without compromising the fill factor (FF) and a low breakdown voltage of approximately 20.5 V. These properties are obtained by employing two custom layers that are designed to provide a full-depletion layer with a high electric field profile. Experimental evaluation of the proposed SPAD reveals an FF of 33.1% and a PDE of 19.4% at 870 nm, which is the laser wavelength of our LIDAR system. The dark count rate (DCR) measurements shows that DCR levels of the proposed SPAD have a small effect on the ranging performance, even if the worst DCR (12.7 kcps) SPAD among the test samples is used. Furthermore, with an eye toward vehicle installations, the DCR is measured over a wide temperature range of 25–132 °C. The ranging experiment demonstrates that target distances are successfully measured in the distance range of 50–180 cm.

Design and Implementation of A CMOS Light Pulse Receiver Cell Array for Spatial Optical Communications

A CMOS light pulse receiver (LPR) cell for spatial optical communications is designed and evaluated by device simulations and a prototype chip implementation. The LPR cell consists of a pinned photodiode and four transistors. It works under sub-threshold region of a MOS transistor and the source terminal voltage which responds to the logarithm of the photo current are read out with a source follower circuit. For finding the position of the light spot on the focal plane, an image pixel array is embedded on the same plane of the LPR cell array. A prototype chip with 640 × 240 image pixels and 640 × 240 LPR cells is implemented with 0.18 μm CMOS technology. A proposed model of the transient response of the LPR cell agrees with the result of the device simulations and measurements. Both imaging at 60 fps and optical communication at the carrier frequency of 1 MHz are successfully performed. The measured signal amplitude and the calculation results of photocurrents show that the spatial optical communication up to 100 m is feasible using a 10 × 10 LED array.

BER characteristic of optical-OFDM using OCI

Light-emitting diode (LED) transmitters based optical wireless communication (OWC) systems offer the potential for new generation communication systems. Particularly, an image sensor based OWC systems consist of the LED transmitters and camera receivers are expected to contribute to intelligent transport system (ITS) for driving supports. For high achievable data rates, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based OWC systems have attracted a great deal of attention. Despite attractive features of optical OFDM, only few attempts have so far been made to adopt it as a modulation scheme of an image sensor based OWC system. There remains a need for an evaluation of adopting an optical OFDM to the image sensor based OWC systems. Another important issue needs to be addressed is the performance degradation due to a frequency response of an actual image sensor device, especially a signal attenuation loss in higher frequency. In addition to such loss, a narrow band noise generated by its circuits also degrades the performance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate BER performances of the optical-OFDM using an actual image sensor device, the optical communication image sensor (OCI). From simulation results, it is found that the frequency response and the narrowband noise at 12MHz of the OCI lead to the significant reduction of BER performances. Additionally, the results shows that ACO-OFDM shows a little better performance compared to DCO-OFDM with the same bandwidth efficiency.

An imager using 2-D single-photon avalanche diode array in 0.18-μm CMOS for automotive LIDAR application

A feasibility imager chip of a 32× 4-pixel array was developed in a 0.18-μm CMOS process for a small size automotive laser imaging detection and ranging. Each pixel consists of 8 single-photon avalanche diodes as a world-first 2-D pixel array with digital output macro pixel architecture which enables laser signal sensing under sunlight noise. Distance measurement results show less than 2.1% nonlinearity and 0.11-m standard deviation up to 20-m distance with 10%-refIective target under the ambient light of 75 klux.