PixNet: LCD-camera pairs as communication links

  • Authors:

  • Samuel David Perli;Nabeel Ahmed;Dina Katabi

  • Affiliations:

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA;Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA;Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2010 conference
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Given the abundance of cameras and LCDs in today's environment, there exists an untapped opportunity for using these devices for communication. Specifically, cameras can tune to nearby LCDs and use them for network access. The key feature of these LCD-camera links is that they are highly directional and hence enable a form of interference-free wireless communication. This makes them an attractive technology for dense, high contention scenarios. The main challenge, however, to enable such LCD-camera links is to maximize coverage, that is to deliver multiple Mb/s over multi-meter distances, independent of the view angle. To do so, these links need to address unique types of channel distortions, such as perspective distortion and blur. In this demo, we show how these LCD-camera links can be used to wirelessly transmit information. We present PixNet, an LCD-camera communication system. PixNet generalizes the popular OFDM transmission algorithms to address the unique properties of the LCD-camera link, including perspective distortion and blur. We have built a prototype of PixNet using off-the-shelf LCDs and cameras. In our demo, we will show our prototype communicating data from an LCD to a camera-equipped PC, over multi-meter distances and wide viewing angles.