A Symmetric Matrix-Aided MIMO to Improve Reliability for Maritime Visible Light Communications

Abstract

Turbulence in natural environments affects the reliability of communication. In this paper, we propose a symmetric matrix-assisted multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) maritime visible light communication (VLC) system to confront turbulence and improve reliability. In our design, by exploiting the repeatability of elements in the symmetric matrix, the matrix can expand the Euclidean distance between signals and effectively restrains the interference between signals, thus improving the reliability of maritime VLC systems. In addition, we derive the theoretical symbol error rate (SER) of the proposed scheme. Then, simulation results are provided to validate the theoretical SER. In addition, the SER performances of the proposed system are compared with the three benchmark schemes of repetitive coding (RC), spatial modulation (SM), and spatial multiplexing (SMP), and the transmission performances in VLC systems with different link distances, water qualities, and wind speeds are also investigated. The proposed symmetric matrix-assisted MIMO maritime VLC system can combat interferences effectively and enhance reliability performance.