Simulation of rolling shutter acquisition in optical camera communications

Abstract

The rolling shutter (RS) acquisition mechanism performed by the majority of the digital cameras included in portable devices has been exploited to make receivers for visible light communications (VLC). They are able to decode signals of frequencies higher than the frame rate of the camera, which is a limitation when using global shutter sensors. Based on experience with an experimental optical camera communications system, a simulation of rolling shutter receiver for OCC has been developed. This simulator uses a color-multiplexed on-off keying (OOK) modulation, along with a radiance pattern for the LED source, to generate transmitted signals. Then, a simplified camera optics model translates them into received signals, to which the RS simulation is applied, delivering synthetic camera frames.