US 8,428,469 B2Granted

Visible light communication method and apparatus

AssigneeSamsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

InventorsDo-Young Kim, Eun-Tae Won, Young-Kwon Cho, Tae-Han Bae, Sun-Gi Gu, Jae-Seung Son

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Abstract

A method and an apparatus are provided for guaranteeing terminal mobility in a time division visible light communication system. In resource assignment in a position where the visible light communication terminal changes a cell, the terminal is assigned a resource to be used in a next cell in a cell boundary area from a communication coordinator, thereby guaranteeing the continuous mobility. The visible light communication system informs the terminal of cell boundary notice information for easily informing the terminal of the cell definition so that the terminal can recognize that the terminal is currently located in the cell boundary and is necessary to change the resource.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A visible light communication method in a visible light coordinator, which discriminates between at least one communication area cell that includes at least one light source and a boundary area positioned between the communication area cell and another communication area cell adjacent to the communication cell area, and which provides time division visible light communication, the method comprising the steps of:

detecting a position of a visible light communication terminal;
determining a first communication area cell corresponding to the position of the detected visible light communication terminal;
determining a first time slot for receiving data of the visible light communication terminal in the first communication area cell;
assigning a second time slot, which has not been assigned to the visible light communication terminal, to the visible light communication terminal, when the visible light communication terminal is located in a boundary area of the first communication area cell;
and
communicating with the visible light communication terminal using the second time slot.

3 more elements

A visible light coordinator, which discriminates between at least one communication area cell that includes at least one light source and a boundary area positioned between the communication area cell and another communication area cell adjacent to the communication area cell, and which provides time division visible light communication, the visible light coordinator comprising:

a memory for storing information of the at least one communication area cell;
and
a controller for detecting a position of a visible light communication terminal, determining a first communication area cell corresponding to the position of the detected visible light communication terminal, determining a first time slot for receiving data of the visible light communication terminal in the first communication area cell, assigning a second time slot, which has not been assigned to the visible light communication terminal, to the visible light communication terminal when the visible light communication terminal is located in a boundary area of the first communication area cell, and communicating with the visible light communication terminal by using the second time slot.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.