Lighting Up with a Dual-Purpose Driver: A Viable Option for a Light-Emitting Diode Driver for Visible Light Communication

This article presents a dual-purpose offline light-emitting diode (LED) driver using a single-stage buck-boost-buck (S
²
-B
³
) converter. The proposed (S
²
-B
³
) converter provides combined illumination control and visible light communication (VLC) along with power factor correction (PFC) and is designed to operate the buck-boost section in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) with constant duty ratio to provide PFC. The buck section of the converter is operated in continuous conduction mode (CCM) with average current mode control (ACMC) to realize a constant current source for a high-brightness LED (HB-LED) load. The HBLED load connected to the converter is switched on and off at 2 MHz to facilitate both illumination and VLC . Data transfer and illumination control are achieved through variable pulse position modulation (VPPM) and high-frequency pulsewidth modulation (PWM) dimming, respectively. The modeling and design of the proposed (S
²
-B
³
) converter with a VPPM modulation scheme are detailed. Simulation and experimental results of the proposed converter with 500-lm output and 2-Mb/s data transfer of phosphor-converted (PC)-white LEDs for 110/120-V ac input are demonstrated.