Optical Power Domain NOMA for Visible Light Communications

We propose an optical power domain non-orthogonal multiple access (OPD-NOMA) scheme for visible light communications. OPD-NOMA superposes user messages in the optical power domain based on a light-emitting diode (LED) array. The maximum driven current for respective circuits is reduced compared to that of conventional NOMA, in which the LED-array-module is driven by a single circuit. OPD-NOMA reduces the gain and bandwidth requirements for the driver circuit of light source. The nonlinear power-current response of LED largely restricts its usable dynamic range and thus the transmit power. In OPD-NOMA, signals with lower powers suffer from reduced nonlinear distortion. The experimental results show that, OPD-NOMA offers improved transmission performance compared to conventional NOMA using the same driver circuit, since it can make a better use of the linear dynamic range of the LED’s power-current response