Evaluation of Mobile Environment for Vehicular Visible Light Communication Using Multiple LEDs and Event Cameras

TL;DR

This paper evaluates a vehicular visible light communication system using event cameras as receivers and multiple LEDs as transmitters, demonstrating error-free communication within 40 meters at 30 km/h in outdoor experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel V2V communication system employing event cameras and multiple LEDs, showcasing practical outdoor performance in dynamic driving conditions.

Findings

Error-free communication within 40 meters at 30 km/h

Effective separation of LED sources using Walsh-Hadamard codes

Robust communication in outdoor vehicular environments

Abstract

In the fields of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Autonomous Driving (AD), sensors that serve as the ``eyes'' for sensing the vehicle's surrounding environment are essential. Traditionally, image sensors and LiDAR have played this role. However, a new type of vision sensor, event cameras, has recently attracted attention. Event cameras respond to changes in the surrounding environment (e.g., motion), exhibit strong robustness against motion blur, and perform well in high dynamic range environments, which are desirable in robotics applications. Furthermore, the asynchronous and low-latency principles of data acquisition make event cameras suitable for optical communication. By adding communication functionality to event cameras, it becomes possible to utilize I2V communication to immediately share information about forward collisions, sudden braking, and road conditions, thereby contributing to hazard avoidance. Additionally, receiving information such as signal timing and traffic volume enables speed adjustment and optimal route selection, facilitating more efficient driving. In this study, we construct a vehicle visible light communication system where event cameras are receivers, and multiple LEDs are transmitters. In driving scenes, the system tracks the transmitter positions and separates densely packed LED light sources using pilot sequences based on Walsh-Hadamard codes. As a result, outdoor vehicle experiments demonstrate error-free communication under conditions where the transmitter-receiver distance was within 40 meters and the vehicle's driving speed was 30 km/h (8.3 m/s).