• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.189-195
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• 2016

In this paper, we newly introduce a visible light communication (VLC) repeater using the LED array in an LED lamp. The LED array is used for a light source in the repeater, which radiates light both for illumination and data transmission. A VLC repeater is made by adding some electronic circuits to the LED array including a photodetector, a demodulator, and a modulator. The repeater is installed on the ceiling of a room like a conventional LED lamp, receives the VLC signal from an arbitrary transmitter, recovers data, and radiates the signal to wide area in the room. We used a carrier frequency of 100 kHz for the uplink from a transmitter to the repeater, and 500 kHz for the downlink from the repeater to a receiver. The repeater is useful for increasing the transmission path to wide area over the obstacles that may exist between VLC transmitters and receivers.