Experimental Demonstration of Multi-Link Optical Camera Communication Using Denoising Autoencoders for IoT Applications

Radio frequency (RF) for wireless systems is widely installed across applications such as mobile communications, maritime networks, smart factories, and smart homes because of its easy setup compared with wired systems. Nevertheless, potential health concerns associated with exposure to RF waves have driven interest in optical camera communication (OCC) using visible light as a safer alternative. Concurrently, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming automation and complex problem-solving across IoT, smart farming, and smart home ecosystems. In this study, we propose a Camera On–Off Keying (C-OOK) scheme that incorporates YOLO26n for multiple users, which supports light source detection and tracking, along with a denoising autoencoder (DAE) algorithm to assist the decoding process in long-range and mobile environments. This approach improves the traditional C-OOK by supporting multiple users simultaneously, increasing distances, and lowering the bit error rate (BER). Experimental results demonstrate reliable communication up to 15 m in a mobile environment.