A Review of Visible Light Communication LED Drivers

This article presents a survey of light-emitting diode (LED) drivers for visible light communication by making a systematization of the most relevant published research. The modulator circuits were classified according to four types. To match the solutions with potential applications, power and efficiency ratings of conventional lighting and data rate of typical multimedia streaming are used as reference values. In conclusion, linear mode modulators (LMMs) lead the number of publications and switching mode modulators (SMMs) are a recent trend. SMMs can provide a good efficiency supporting power levels for indoor and outdoor luminaries and data rate for audio streaming. LMMs support video streaming given the higher data rates; however, the power rating corresponds to, at most, indoor illumination with significantly lower efficiency.