Nonlinear distortion mitigation in visible light communications

Many physical devices used in VLC systems exhibit nonlinear effects, which can significantly degrade the overall system performance. For example, the LED is the major source of nonlinearity. The forward current is zero unless the forward voltage exceeds a turn-on value. The forward current is also limited with a maximum permissible value. In addition, the electrical-tooptical conversion is also nonlinear. In this article, we provide an overview of techniques related to modeling and distortion mitigation techniques of the nonlinearity in VLC systems. Appropriate models and robust nonlinearity mitigation techniques are crucial to support high-speed transmissions in practical VLC systems.