VINCE: Exploiting visible light sensing for smartphone-based NFC systems

  • Jianwei Niu
  • , Fei Gu
  • , Ruogu Zhou
  • , Guoliang Xing
  • , Wei Xiang

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

This paper presents VINCE - a novel visible light sensing design for smartphone-based Near Field Communication (NFC) systems. VINCE encodes information as different brightness levels of smartphone screens, while receivers capture the light signal via light sensors. In contrast to RF technologies, the direction and distance of such a Visible Light Communication (VLC) link can be easily controlled, preserving communication privacy and security. As a result, VINCE can be used in a wide range of NFC applications such as contactless payments and device pairing. We experimentally profile the impact of screen brightness levels and refresh rates of smartphones, and then use the results to guide the design of light intensity encoding scheme of VINCE. We adopt several signal processing techniques and empirically derive a model to deal with the significant variation of received light intensity caused by noises and low screen refresh rates. To improve the communication reliability, VINCE adopts a feedback-based retransmission scheme, and dynamically adjusts the number of encoding brightness levels based on the current light channel condition. We also derive an analytical model that characterizes the relation among the distance, SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio), and BER (Bit Error Rate) of VINCE. Our design and theoretical model are validated via extensive evaluations using a hardware implementation of VINCE on Android smartphones and the Arduino platform.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2015 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications, IEEE INFOCOM 2015
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages2722-2730
Number of pages9
ISBN (Electronic)9781479983810
DOIs
StatePublished - 21 Aug 2015
Event34th IEEE Annual Conference on Computer Communications and Networks, IEEE INFOCOM 2015 - Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
Duration: 26 Apr 20151 May 2015

Publication series

NameProceedings - IEEE INFOCOM
Volume26
ISSN (Print)0743-166X

Conference

Conference34th IEEE Annual Conference on Computer Communications and Networks, IEEE INFOCOM 2015
Country/TerritoryHong Kong SAR
CityHong Kong
Period26/04/151/05/15

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