Using a CMOS camera sensor for visible light communication

In this paper, a novel scheme for data reception in a mobile phone using visible light communications (VLC) is proposed. The camera of the smartphone is used as a receiver in order to capture the continuous changes in state (on-off) of the light, which are invisible to the human eye. The information is captured in the camera in the form of light and dark bands which are then decoded by the smartphone and the received message is displayed. By exploiting the rolling shutter effect of CMOS sensors, a data rate much higher than the camera frame rate is achieved.