Patent ID: 8913893

Claim:
A visible light communication method, comprising: determining a dimming level variable to perform minute dimming control; selecting an upper dimming symbol and a lower dimming symbol, which belong to Variable Pulse Position Modulation (VPPM) symbols, based on the dimming level variable; determining at least one of a number of upper dimming symbols to be sent and a number of lower dimming symbols to be sent based on the dimming level variable; and generating a transmission sequence corresponding to the dimming level variable by combining the upper dimming symbols and the lower dimming symbols based on the number of symbols to be sent, wherein the VPPM symbols comprise: a VPPM symbol corresponding to a state in which a light source is completely turned off; a VPPM symbol corresponding to a state in which a light source is completely turned on; and nine VPPM symbols corresponding to nine VPPM duty cycles which vary from 0.1 to 0.9 in increments of 0.1, and having VPPM symbol indices which are natural numbers ranging from 1 to 9, wherein the generating a transmission sequence comprises: allocating data symbols to a number of lower dimming symbols equal to the number of lower dimming symbols to be sent; allocating data symbols to a number of upper dimming symbols equal to the number of upper dimming symbols to be sent; and if data symbols to be transmitted are not divided by 100, allocating VPPM idle pattern symbols to the lower dimming symbols or upper dimming symbols so that the transmission sequence is to be divided by 100.