Vehicle-to-Vehicle Optical Wireless Communication with the Smart Corner ™ Automotive Headlamp

Optical wireless communication (OWC) is seen as an interesting technology to complement radio-based systems for vehicular communication. Along with sensors like radar, lidar or cameras, vehicular communication is a cornerstone of the future autonomous vehicles. Automotive Lighting - Magneti Marelli has thus gathered all these technologies into a single automotive light called Smart Corner™. This paper details the architecture, integration and performances of the OWC system used in the third generation Smart Corner™presented at the 2019 Consumer Electronic Show (CES). Based on an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation combined with channel estimation and bit loading, this system maintains a null packet error rate (PER) over 2 m at more than 100 Mbps and over 15 m at 14 Mbps, which shows it could provide a vital redundant communication link in several automotive use cases.