Receiver performance improvement utilizing diversity in MIMO VLC

Visible light communication (VLC) using light emitting diodes (LEDs) has become a benchmark for high speed data communications, especially in indoor applications. In order to achieve high data rate for VLC system, multiple input multiple output (MIMO) is a feasible option. However, contemporary MIMO-VLC system lacks from diversity and experiences performance variation through different optical channels. In order to achieve receiver diversity and mitigate performance variation, we propose maximal ratio combining (MRC) method to improve VLC receiver performance. Simulation results demonstrate performance improvement in terms of received power and bit error rate.