ISBN 978-952-5726-10-7

Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Computer Science and Computational Technology(ISCSCT 10)
Jiaozuo, P. R. China, 14-15,August 2010, pp. 357-360

Performance Research of Modulation for Optical

Wireless Communication
Gao Yan1,

Wu Min2

College of Computer Science &Technology Henan Polytechnic University Jiaozuo, Henan

School of Information Science & Technology Southwest Jiaotong University Chengdu, Sichuan
Email: gaoyan@hpu.edu.cn
2
College of Computer Science &Technology Henan Polytechnic University Jiaozuo, Henan
Email: cathy-21@126.com

AbstractThere are many modulation methods suitable for

optical wireless communication. OOK, PPM are adopted
widely in optical wireless communication for its high
average-power-efficiency. DPPM, DPIM and DH-PIM are
three new modulation methods for optical wireless
communication, which may be the substitutes of PPM
because of their better performance in power efficiency and
bandwidth efficiency. In this paper, in combination of the
characteristic of the atmospheric optical wireless channel,
the bandwidth efficiency, transmission capacity, power
efficiency and slot error rate of the typical modulation
schemes as OOK, PPM, DPPM, DPIM and DH-PIM for
atmospheric optical wireless communications are analyzed.
Theoretical analysis and simulation results by matlab show
that DPPM, DPIM and DH-PIM are more applicable for
the future optical wireless communication.

II. THE CLASSIFICATION OF WIRELESS OPTICAL

MODULATION
A variety of wireless optical communication
modulations are proposed in the present study. The ways
involved in this article are the focus of attention in this
field, including the on-off keying modulation, pulse
position modulation, differential pulse position
modulation, digital pulse interval modulation, doublepulse interval modulation and improved differential pulse
position modulation.
A. On-Off keying Modulation
In the digital wireless optical systems, as the simplest
way, the on-off keying modulation is based on intensity
modulation with direct detection [3]. The generation of
optical pulse is achieved by opening and breaking of
lasers, when sending information 1, the light pulses are
sent; when sending information 0, the laser is shut
down completely.

Index Termsoptical wireless communication; modulation;

slot error rate

I. INTRODUCTION
With the increasing of information communication,
expansion of network bandwidth resources and
improvement of communication flows have become
important issue. Currently the main means of
communication transmission contains microwave, fiber
and so on. Compared with wire communication, a lot of
non-ferrous metals can be saved and complex terrains can
be crossed by microwave communication. As a new
communication
technology,
optical
wireless
communications have the advantages of optical fiber
communication and mobile communications, with wide
bandwidth and without the need for application of
frequency. Therefore, in recent years, the research on
wireless optical communication was gotten more
attention. But the wireless optical communication in the
atmosphere were influenced by atmospheric absorption,
scattering and turbulence lead to signal attenuation, while
the average transmission power is limited owing to the
requirements for safety of human eye [2]. Thus higher
requirements of modulation are proposed.

B. Single-pulse position modulation (L-PPM)

Single-pulse position modulation converts a binary Mbit data group to a single pulse signal at a particular time
slot in time segment which are composed by L=2M time
slots, each time slot is called chip.
C. Differential Pulse Position Modulation
Differential pulse position modulation is one of the
methods of modulation which is improved on the basic of
PPM. For one sign of L-PPM, its time slot is aptotic L
bits, one of them is 1, and the other are 0. Then the code
number of L-DPPM is indefinite, it is composed by s
string of low level and single high level followed [4]. The
signal after high level in a code block of the PPM
modulation signal is removed by the DPPM modulation
signal.
D. Digital Pulse Interval Modulation(DPIM)
As similar to the DPPM, the symbol length of the
DPIM is unfixed and can be divided into unprotected
slots and protected slots, one protected slot is mostly
adopted by protected DPIM modulation to reduce the
impact of intersymbol interference effectively. The
modulation symbols Sk (k is the decimal number
expressed by the symbol) contain k+2 time slots, after

__________________________________________________________
This work is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Henan
Province Department of Education (the serial number is 2008B470002)
and Henan key project (the serial number is 082102210079).
2010 ACADEMY PUBLISHER
AP-PROC-CS-10CN007

357

lowest, along with the increase in the order of modulation

M, the bandwidth demand of PPM, DPPM, DPIM and
DH-PIM modulation is higher and higher.

each starting time slot L, the pulse adds a protected empty

slot and adds k empty slots for expressing information.
When demodulation in the receiver, after determining the
pulse time slot received, it only needs to count the empty
time slot and subtract one for them. In the receiver,
therefore DPIM only need clock synchronization without
symbol synchronization, this greatly simplifies
implementation of the system.

IV.PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF AVERAGE

TRANSMITTED POWER
Because of the eye-safe and portable requirements of
mobile communication device, the transmitted power of
atmospheric wireless optical communication is greatly
restricted. as far as possible to improve utilization rate of
power is demanded [7]. For the OOK (NRZ), assuming
that P1 is the power of launching optical pulse "1", in the
event that the probability of appearing "0" and "1" is
same, its average transmitted power is: POOK=P1/2.
Because 2M time slots are contained by one PPM symbol,
only one time slot send optical pulse. So the average
transmitted power of L-PPM is: PPPM=P1/2M=POOK/2M-1,
(2M+1)/2 time slots are contained by one DPPM symbol,
so PDPPM=2P1/(2M+1)=4POOK/(2M+1). By the same token,
PDPPM=2P1/(2M+3)=4POOK/(2M+3) in the way of DHPIM, the average width of head pulse is 1.5 pulses
(supposing that the two head pulses is equal probability ).
/2 slots are employed by each pulse, so the average time
slot in length of head pulse is L=3/4 and the average

E. Double-Pulse Interval Modulation (DH-PIM)

DH-PIM modulation is more complex, the time slot
included by each symbol is also mutative, but the symbol
adopts two kinds of starting pulse. The symbol Sk is
formed by a head slot and m empty time slots
followed .The head time slot is included by +1 time slots
( is integer). Considering two forms of head H1 and H2,
theH1 initial pulse width is /2 time slot, followed by ( /
2) +1 protected time slots; H2 pulse width is a time slots,
followed by one time slot. When k<2M-1, the head time
slot of symbol Sk is H1, otherwise it is H2.
III.PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF
BANDWIDTH DEMAND
Because the bandwidth of the receiver is limited by the
large volume capacitance of light receptors, bandwidth of
the wireless optical communication system is much
smaller and much better. Under the condition of same bit
rate, bandwidth requirements of the five kinds of
modulation are analyzed and compared, assuming that the
modulation order are M. For the OOK system, the bit rate
of information are Rb, then the share of bandwidth are
Book=Rb; in the PPM system, for the same bit rate Rb, the
bandwidth of PPM are BPPM=2MRb/M; in the DPIM
system, for the same bit rate Rb, the bandwidth of DPIM
are: BDPIM= (2M+3) Rb/2M. the bandwidth of DPPM as
follows: BDPPM=(2M+1)Rb/2M ; the average time slot
length of DH-PIM modulation are L=+2M-2+1/2; the
cycle of time slot are: T=M/(LRb)=2M/[(2+2M-1+1)Rb\.
then the
bandwidth as follows: BDH-PIM=(2M1
+2+1)Rb/2M. The results of normalized band width
according to OOK by matlab simulation [1] are showed in
the figure 1.

PDH PIM =

3P1
=
4 L

3P1
2 ( 2 M 1 + 2 +1)

transmitted power is
The results of normalized average power comparison
for OOK by matlab simulation are showed in figure 2
under the same peak power [8].

Figure 2. The comparison of average transmitted power on

OOK PPM DPPM DPIM and DH-PIM

Figure 1.

It can be seen that the power utilization efficiency of

PPM, DPIM, DPPM and DH-PIM is higher than OOK;
with M increases, the trend is more obvious; power
utilization efficiency of PPM is the highest and the DPIM
is the second highest. When M is less than 4, the power
utilization efficiency of DH-PIM (=1) is superior to
DPPM; When M is more than 4, the power utilization
efficiency of DPPM is superior to DH-PIM (=1), As M
increases, the average transmit power of DPPM and
DPIM tend to equal, DH-PIM power utilization ratio is
only better than OOK, and its power utilization ratio
decreases as increases. The average transmission power
gradually decline as M increases except OOK.

The comparison of bandwidth on OOK PPM

DPPM DPIM and DH-PIM

It can be seen that the bandwidth demand of PPM is

the highest and the bandwidth demand of DPPM is the
second highest, the bandwidth demand of OOK is the
358

VI. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF

ERROR RATE

V.PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF TRANSMISSION

CAPACITY
The size of the transmission capacity represents the
ability to transfer information per unit time, and it also
was important performance index of atmospheric wireless
optical communication. Under the condition of same time
slot width, the transmission capacity of OOK, PPM,
DPPM, DPIM, DH-PIM modulation were analyzed and
compared, their order of modulation were M, the size of
bit rate were used to measure size of transmission
capacity [5]. Supposing the slot width are , then
transmission capacity of OOK are1/, the average symbol
length of PPM are 2M, the average symbol length of
DPPM are (2M+1)/2, the average symbol length of DPIM
are (2M-3)/2, the average symbol length of DH-PIM
are( 2M+2+1)/2, Each symbol corresponds to M bits of
binary information, so the transmission capacity of PPM,
DPPM, DPIM, DH-PIM are respectively as follows:
C PPM

The intensity modulation / direct detection (IM / DD)

were adopted in the system of optical wireless
communication. It was assumed that the additive white
Gaussian noise (AGWN) only exist to discuss
conveniently, the mean value of noise n(t) is 0 and
variance is n2 [6]. At the same time the bandwidth of
receiver is very wide. Then the x (t) which is gotten in the
input of sample decision device are S t + n(t ) when pulse
1 is sent, or x (t) is n (t) without pulse. The signal peak
power in the input of decision device are St. Decision
threshold is supposed b, P1/0 is the probability that 1 are
misjudged 0and P0/1 is the probability that 0are
misjudged 1, they respectively are as follows:

M
= M = M C OOK
2 2

erf ( x ) =

2M
2M
= M
=
C OOK
( 2 3) 2 M 3

C DPPM =

exp(u

) du = 1 erfc( x )

Then the error rate are Pse=P1P0/1+P0P1/0. P1 and P0

respectively are the probability of "1"transmitted and "0"
transmitted. P0+P1=1. Probability of occurrence for
information "1"and "0" are supposed to equal. For OOK,
P1=P0=1/2. Obviously the best decision thresholds are:

2M
2M
=
C OOK
( 2 M + 1) 2 M + 1

C DH PIM =

2 n2 ]}

P10 = (1 2){1 erf [b

C DPIM

2 n2 ]}

P01 = (1 2){1 + erf [( b S t )

2M
2M
=
C OOK
( 2 M + 2 + 1) 2 M + 2 + 1

The results of normalized transmission capacity for M

by matlab simulation are shown in Figure 3.

1
1
1
P0 / 1 = P1 / 0 = erfc ( S t 2 n2 / 2 )
2
2
2

Pse ,OOK =

By the same token available, the error rate of PPM,

DPPM, DPIM and DH-PIM are respectively:
Pse , PPM =

1 + erf [( b S t )

Pse , DPPM =

n2 )]

2 M +1

1 + erf [( b S t )

Pse , DPIM =

Pse , DH PIM =

Figure 3. The comparison of transmission capacity on OOK

PPM DPPM DPIM and DH-PIM

2 n2 ] + ( 2 M 1)[1 erf ( b

2 n2 ] + [( 2 M 1) 2][1 erf ( b
2

1 + erf [( b S t )

+1

2 n2 ] + [( 2 M 1) 2] [1 erf ( b
2

(3 2)(1 + erf [(b S t )

n2 )]

n2 )]

+3

2 n2 ] + [( 4 Lm 3 ) 2][1 erf (b

n2 )]

4 Lm

The derived function which is gotten by finding

derivative to b on both sides of the above four formulas is
supposed to be "0". Then the optimum threshold b can be
obtained. For the PPM: l=2M-1; for the DPPM: l= (2M1)/2; for the DPIM: l= (2M+1)/2; for the DH-PIM: l=
(2M++2)/3.
Under the optimum threshold, the curve of error rate
relative to SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) is shown in figure
4, and the SNR is defined as St/2n2. From that the error
rate decreases as SNR increase for one modulation. When
the SNR is certain, the error rate decrease as M
increase(except OOK); When the M is certain, the PPM
error rate is the minimum and the OOK error rate is the
maximum, the DPIM error rate is inferior to DH-PIM, the
DH-PIM error rate increase as increase. The DPPM
error rate is briefly inferior to DH-PIM (=1) when M is
equal to 3; and the DPPM error rate is between DH-PIM
(=1) and DPIM when M is equal to 4; the DPPM error

From figure 3, when M=2, transmission capacity of

OOK are the highest, transmission capacity of DH-PIM
(a=1) are the same with DPPM, transmission capacity of
DH-PIM (a=2) are the same with DPIM, and the
transmission capacity of DH-PIM (a=1) is higher than
DH-PIM (a=2) and transmission capacity of PPM is the
lowest [4]. When M is greater than 2, OOK transmission
capacity is the highest, DH-PIM is superior to DPPM, and
DH-PIM transmission capacity increases as a decrease,
DPPM is superior to DPIM, transmission capacity of the
OOK is the minimum. As M increases (except for OOK),
other modulation transmission capacity of other
modulation is lower and lower and tends to equal.

359

modulation method is an improvement of DPIM which

use pulses of different lengths in the head slot, the
average transmission power and error rates of DH-PIM
are slightly higher than the DPIM, but more good
bandwidth efficiency is gotten more than DPIM and PPM,
its advantages become more pronounced with the symbol
length (M) increases. The several modulation methods
have their own advantages and disadvantages, and
therefore DPPM, DPIM and DH-PIM ( = 1) have more
advantages, more suitable for future wireless optical
communication systems.
Figure 4. the comparison of error rate on OOK PPM DPPM
DPIM and DH-PIM

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Wireless Optical DH-PIM with DPIM modulation
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[4] HU ZM, TANG JX. Digital pulse interval modulation for
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rate tend towards to DPIM when M is greater than 4.

With the increasing of M, the error rate of PPM, DPPM,
DPIM and DH-PIM (=1) tend to the same.
VII.CONCLUSION
In this paper, combining the wireless optical channel
characteristics of the atmosphere, the performance of
bandwidth demand, transmission capacity, power
requirements and error rate is analyzed on the five kinds
of modulation of atmospheric optical wireless
communication. Theoretical analysis and simulation show
that OOK is the easiest way without symbol
synchronization, the bandwidth demand is the minimum
and the transmission capacity is the maximum, but the
power utilization is too low and the error rate is large; the
power utilization of PPM with symbol synchronization is
greatly improved but the bandwidth utilization is the
lowest; comparing to the OOK, the DPIM have the higher
power efficiency, comparing to the PPM, the DPIM have
higher bandwidth utilization, and the DPIM do not need
the symbol synchronization at the receiving end; DPPM
is relatively close to the DPIM in all respects; DH-PIM

360