Series/Parallel Boost/Buck DC/DC Converter as a Visible Light Communication HB-LED Driver Based on Split Power

This paper presents a high-brightness LED (HB-LED) driver for visible light communication (VLC) based on two converters. The first is a high-frequency buck DC/DC converter and the second is a low-frequency boost DC/DC converter, connected in series with respect to the LED load and connected in parallel at the input, forming a series/parallel boost/buck DC/DC converter. It is well known that a VLC system needs to perform two different tasks: biasing the HB-LED load and transmitting the communication signal. These typically have different power requirements; the bias power is 75%, while the communication power is 25% of the total power. The requirements of each converter are also different; the communication signal requires a fast output response and, therefore, a high switching frequency, while the biasing control does not require a converter with a high output voltage response. The proposed architecture in this paper takes advantage of the differences between the two tasks and achieves high efficiency and high communication performance by means of splitting power between the two DC/DC converters. The high-frequency buck DC/DC converter tracks the communication signal, while the low-frequency boost DC/DC converter is responsible for lighting tasks. This technique enables high efficiency because most of the power is processed by the low-frequency converter, while a minor part of the power is processed by the high-frequency converter, achieving high communication performance. To provide experimental results, the proposed VLC HB-LED driver was built and validated by reproducing a 64-QAM with a bit rate up to 1.5 Mbps, reaching 91.5% overall efficiency.