DFT-spread OFDM with quadrature index modulation for practical VLC systems

In this paper, we for the first time propose and investigate a novel discrete Fourier transform-spread-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing with quadrature index modulation (DFT-S-OFDM-QIM) scheme for practical visible light communication (VLC) systems. By performing subcarrier index modulation on both the in-phase and quadrature components of each subcarrier, OFDM-QIM achieves a higher spectral efficiency than conventional OFDM with index modulation (OFDM-IM). Moreover, the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of OFDM-QIM can be substantially reduced by applying DFT spreading, and hence DFT-S-OFDM-QIM exhibits high tolerance against light-emitting diode (LED) nonlinearity. The superiority of the proposed DFT-S-OFDM-QIM scheme over other benchmark schemes has been successfully verified by both simulation and experimental results. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement