  Side-effect modulation (SEM) has the potential to be a significant source of
interference in future visible light communication (VLC) systems. SEM is a
variation in the intensity of the light emitted by a luminaire and is usually a
side-effect caused by the power supply used to drive the luminaires. For LED
luminaires powered by a switched mode power supply, the SEM can be at much
higher frequencies than that emitted by conventional incandescent or
fluorescent lighting. It has been shown that the SEM caused by commercially
available LED luminaires is often periodic and of low power. In this paper, we
investigate the impact of typical forms of SEM on the performance of optical
OFDM VLC systems; both ACO-OFDM and DCO-OFDM are considered. Our results show
that even low levels of SEM power can significantly degrade the bit-error-rate
performance. To solve this problem, an SEM mitigation scheme is described. The
mitigation scheme is decision-directed and is based on estimating and
subtracting the fundamental component of the SEM from the received signal. We
describe two forms of the algorithm; one uses blind estimation while the other
uses pilot-assisted estimation based on a training sequence. Decision errors,
resulting in decision noise, limit the performance of the blind estimator even
when estimation is based on very long signals. However, the pilot system can
achieve more accurate estimations, thus better performance. Results are first
presented for typical SEM waveforms for the case where the fundamental
frequency of the SEM is known. The algorithms are then extended to include a
frequency estimation step and the mitigation algorithm is shown also to be
effective in this case.
