초록
In this study, a multilevel visible light communication (VLC) system based on resistor ladder circuit is designed to transmit medical data. VLC technology is being considered as an alternative wireless communication due to various advantages such as ubiquity, license free operation, low energy consumption, and no radio frequency (RF) radiation characteristics. With VLC even in places where traditional RF communication (e.g., Wi-Fi) is forbidden, significant bio-medical signal including the electrocardiography (ECG) and photoplethysmography (PPG) data can be transmitted. More lives could be saved anywhere by this potential advantage of VLC with a fast emergency response time. A multilevel transmission scheme is adopted to improve the data capacity with keeping simplicity, where data transmission rate can increase by log2m times (m is the number of voltage levels) than that of conventional VLC transmission based on on/off keying. In order to generate multi-amplitudes, resistor ladder circuit, which is a basic principle of digital to analog convertor, is employed, and information is transferred through LED (Light-Emitting Diode) with different voltage level. In the receiver side, multilevel signal is detected by optical receiver including a photo diode. Then, the collected data are analyzed to serve the necessary medical care to the concerned patient.