Clipping Noise in Visible Light Communication Systems with OFDM and PAPR Reduction

This paper presents an analytical study of signal clipping that leads to the noise/distortion in the waveform of DC-biased optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DCO-OFDM)-based visible light communication (VLC) systems. The pilot-assisted (PA) technique is used to reduce the high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of the time-domain waveform of the DCO-OFDM system. The bit error rate (BER) performance of the PA DCO-OFDM system is investigated analytically at three different clipping levels as well as without any clipping. The analytical BER performance is verified through simulation and then compared to that of the conventional DCO-OFDM without PAPR reduction at the selected clipping levels. The PA DCO-OFDM system shows improved BER performance at all three clipping levels.