LAUSR

Abstract In visible light communication (VLC) under weak illuminance, the single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) is usually utilized for signal detection due to its high sensitivity to optical signals. However, the SPAD detector suffers from the nonlinearity effect induced by the dead time, which degrades the performance of the classical constellation and signal detection schemes. In this paper, in consideration of the nonlinear dead time effect, a novel reordering Anscombe Root transformation (ART) based detector is proposed for the SPAD VLC systems employing pulse–amplitude modulation (PAM). In addition, a geometric PAM (Geo-PAM) constellation is designed to further enhance the performance. Simulation results demonstrate that, the proposed detector and Geo-PAM constellation are capable of widening the working region of SPAD, where the BER is lower than 1 0 − 3 , in comparison with its classical counterparts.