Modeling and parameter estimation of vehicle vibration inducing transmitter displacement in ITS image sensor communication

Image sensor communication (ISC), which is derived from visible light communication (VLC), is a novel form of wireless communication that uses an image sensor as a receiver. ISC is an attractive solution for outdoor mobile environments and is particularly well-suited to intelligent transport systems (ITS). The purpose of this paper is to derive the dominant components of vehicle vibrations and road surface irregularities that induce transmitter displacement in ITS-ICS in paved road scenarios. Such displacements make it difficult for a ISC receiver to select the correct pixels. We measured vehicle vibrations during an actual driving scenario using a six-axis acceleration sensor installed in a smartphone. Using the results obtained, we performed a frequency analysis of the vehicle vibrations and determined the parameters of vehicle vibrations based on the frequency characteristics. This paper explains that the vehicle vibrations that affect the communication performance can be modeled by solely using Gaussian random processes when a high frame rate (e.g. 1000 fps) image sensor is used as the ISC receiver.

I. Introduction

With the development of intelligent transport systems (ITS), an increasing number of advanced driver assistance systems (ADASs) that use image sensors are being developed [1]. These image sensors can not only be used for view assistance and image recognition but also for visible light communication (VLC) [2]–[4]. Wireless communication that uses image sensors as receivers is called image sensor communication (ISC) [2]; moreover, an ISC that is used in automotive applications is called ITS-ISC [5]–[8]; the applications of this include infrastructure-to-vehicle ISC (12V-ISC), vehicle-to-infrastructure ISC (V2I-ISC), and vehicle-to-vehicle ISC (V2V-ISC).