MLCS: Face-to-face mobile-LCD communication system based on visible light communication

Abstract

Given the explosive growth of cameras and LCDs in todays society, cameras get easy access to nearby LCDs and could be utilized for communication access based on visible light communication (VLC). However, there is still no prototype to implement two-way communications. Main challenge lies in the reflection noise since two screens of LCD and/or smartphone are in face-to-face position for two-way communications. In this paper, we advance a step for developing MLCS, a face-to-face mobile-LCD communication system using off-the-shelf camera-mounted LCD and smartphone. More specifically, we propose ADIC, an ADjacent Image Calibration approach to eliminate the reflection noise. ADIC exploits our experimental observation that black-screen image can capture the main reflection noise. To increase the throughput, ADIC presents an adaptive black-screen image calibration method based on the feedback information for characterizing the reflection index of received image. Our approach is evaluated through extensive experiments on smartphone and laptop.