ISO/IEC 17417:2011

Information technology - Telecommunications and information exchange between systems - Short Distance Visible Light Communication (SDVLC)

ISO/IEC 17417:2011 specifies a phsical layer (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) for communication of up to 10 cm distance with an fm of 120 MHz using visual light with the wavelength between 380 nm and 780 nm. In addition, it specifies human-detectable brightness control that is independent of the modulation for the data transfer.

Technologies de l'information — Téléinformatique — Communication à courte distance utilisant la lumière visible (SDVLC)

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 27-Nov-2011
• ICS: 35.100.20 - Data link layer
• Technical Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6 - Telecommunications and information exchange between systems
• Drafting Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6 - Telecommunications and information exchange between systems
• Current Stage: 9093 - International Standard confirmed
• Start Date: 23-May-2025
• Completion Date: 30-Oct-2025

Relations

• Consolidated By: ISO 18674-2:2016 - Geotechnical investigation and testing - Geotechnical monitoring by field instrumentation - Part 2: Measurement of displacements along a line: Extensometers
• Effective Date: 06-Jun-2022

Overview

ISO/IEC 17417:2011 defines the physical layer (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) for Short Distance Visible Light Communication (SDVLC). The standard targets very short-range optical links (up to 10 cm) using visible light (wavelengths 380–780 nm) and specifies modulation, encoding, frame formats and user-visible brightness control that is independent of data modulation. SDVLC is designed primarily for systems where LEDs used for illumination also carry data or where visible status and data transfer are combined (the standard notes mobile-to-mobile as a representative application).

Key technical topics and requirements

• Range & spectrum: Communication specified for up to 10 cm using visible light in the 380–780 nm band.
• Modulation: Mandatory On-Off Keying (OOK) with a mandatory modulation frequency of 120 MHz; timing/jitter constraints are defined to ensure reliable demodulation.
• Encodings: 8B/10B encoding is required (for maximum throughput); 2B/4B is optional to allow variable optical duty cycles (25%, 50%, 75%) and visible-brightness trade-offs.
• PHY electrical/optical requirements: Transmitter and receiver optical performance, rise/fall times (≤ 3.0 ns), and off-state irradiance limits are specified to guarantee interoperability and visible-light safety/visibility.
• MAC and framing: Data Frame and Visible Frame structures, MAC PDU formats, CRCs, start/control headers, bit order (LSB first), and link management messages (association, disassociation, acknowledge, burst modes) are defined.
• Human-visible control: The standard mandates human-detectable brightness control separate from data modulation so devices can indicate link status or user-visible signals without affecting data integrity.
• Interoperability rules: Conformance clauses enumerate required elements (transmitter + receiver, mandatory encoding and modulation frequency, etc.).

Practical applications and target users

• Device manufacturers of consumer electronics, mobile devices, wearables, and IoT gadgets that want short-range, line-of-sight data exchange using LEDs.
• Use cases include secure proximity pairing, device-to-device transfers, status signaling combined with data, and experimental short-range high-speed links where RF is undesirable.
• System integrators and test labs implementing PHY/MAC stacks for visible light prototypes or products benefiting from visible status indicators tied to data channels.
• Researchers developing VLC modulation, encoding, and human-factors integration for combined illumination/data systems.

Related standards

ISO/IEC 17417 references several relevant documents for interoperability and protocol design, including:

• ISO/IEC 14165-251 (8B/10B encoding reference)
• ISO/IEC 18092 (NFC interface/protocol context)
• ISO/IEC 7498-1, ITU‑T Z.100, and RFC 791 (protocol and modelling references)

ISO/IEC 17417:2011 is essential reading for anyone implementing short-distance visible light links where LED illumination and data exchange must coexist reliably and visibly.

Standards Content (Sample)

INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 17417
First edition
2011-12-01
Information technology —
Telecommunications and information
exchange between systems — Short
Distance Visible Light Communication
(SDVLC)
Technologies de l'information — Téléinformatique — Communication à
courte distance utilisant la lumière visible (SDVLC)

Reference number
©
ISO/IEC 2011
©  ISO/IEC 2011
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, no part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and microfilm, without permission in writing from either ISO at the address below or
ISO's member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
Case postale 56  CH-1211 Geneva 20
Tel. + 41 22 749 01 11
Fax + 41 22 749 09 47
E-mail [e-mail]
Web www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii © ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword . v
Introduction . vi
1  Scope . 1
2  Conformance . 1
3  Normative references . 1
4  Terms,definitions and abbreviations . 2
5  Conventions and notations . 6
6  General . 6
7  Physical Layer . 6
8  Transmitter and Receiver Block Diagram . 7
8.1  Transmitter to Receiver Link . 7
8.2  Data Encoding . 7
8.2.1  8B10 Data Encoding . 8
8.2.2  2B4B Data Encoding . 8
8.3  Modulation . 8
8.4  Bit Order . 8
9  Frame Formats . 8
9.1  Frame Structure overview . 9
9.2  Frame Structure Detail . 10
9.2.1  Start Indicator Structure . 10
9.2.2  Control Header Structure. 11
9.3  MAC PDU Structure . 13
9.3.1  MAC Header . 13
9.3.2  Payload . 14
9.3.3  Payload CRC . 15
9.4  Visible Frame . 15
9.4.1  Visible Pattern . 15
9.5  Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) . 16
10  Connection Procedure . 16
11  Association Operation Messages . 17
11.1  Association Request (AS-REQ) . 17
11.2  Association Response (AS-RSP) . 18
11.3  Association Acknowledge (AS-ACK) . 18
11.4  Disassociation Request (DAS-REQ) . 19
11.5  Disassociation Response (DAS-RSP) . 19
11.6  Disassociation Acknowledge (DAS-ACK) . 20
12  Data Burst Modes Operation . 20
12.1  Periodic Burst Mode . 20
12.1.1  Burst Request Message (BR-REQ) . 21
12.1.2  Burst Response Message (BR-RSP) . 23
12.2  Aperiodic Burst Mode . 24
12.2.1  Aperiodic Burst Request Message (ABR-REQ) . 25
12.2.2  Aperiodic Burst Response Message (ABR-RSP) . 26
13  Data Encoding Change . 28
13.1  ENC-REQ (Data Encoding Change Request) . 28
© ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved iii

13.2  ENC-RSP (Data Encoding Change Response) .28

iv © ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members of
ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees
established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC
technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international organizations, governmental
and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the work. In the field of information
technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee, ISO/IEC JTC 1.
International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.
The main task of the joint technical committee is to prepare International Standards. Draft International
Standards adopted by the joint technical committee are circulated to national bodies for voting. Publication as
an International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the national bodies casting a vote.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent
rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
ISO/IEC 17417 was prepared by Ecma International (as ECMA-397) and was adopted, under a special “fast-
track procedure”, by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, in parallel with its
approval by national bodies of ISO and IEC.
© ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved v

Introduction
Short Distance Visible Light Communication (SDVLC) uses visible light LEDs for data communication. In most
cases, LEDs with the primary purpose of illumination will take on the secondary purpose of acting as a digital
data communication source; in other cases the LED’s primary purpose will be data communication while the
secondary purpose will be to communicate visible status to the user. With the extension of the application of
LEDs from the primary purpose of illumination to the secondary purpose of data communication, VLC can be
also applied to short range data communication.
With SDVLC, “what you see is what you send”. One possible application of SDVLC is high speed
mobile-to-mobile communication.

vi © ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved

INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 17417:2011(E)

Information technology — Telecommunications and information
exchange between systems — Short Distance Visible Light
Communication (SDVLC)
1 Scope
This International Standard specifies a phsical layer (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) for
communication of up to 10 cm distance with an f of 120 MHz using visual light with the wavelength between
m
380 nm and 780 nm.
In addition it specifies human-detectable brightness control that is independent of the modulation for the data
transfer.
2 Conformance
Conformant implementations:
 have both a Transmitter and a Receiver;
 use 8B10B encoding and may use 2B4B encoding;
 use an f of 120 MHz as specified in 8.3.
m
3 Normative references
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document. For dated
references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced
document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO/IEC 18092:2004, Information technology — Telecommunications and information exchange between
systems — Near Field Communication — Interface and Protocol (NFCIP-1)
ISO/IEC 7498-1, Information technology — Open Systems Interconnection — Basic Reference Model: The
Basic Model
ISO/IEC 14165-251, Information technology — Fibre Channel — Part 251: Framing and Signaling (FC-FS)
ITU-T Z.100, Specification and Description Language (SDL)
RFC 791, Internet Protocol — DARPA Internet Program — Protocol Specification
© ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved 1

4 Terms,definitions and abbreviations
For the purposes of this document, the terms, definitions and abbreviations given in ISO/IEC 7498-1 and the
following apply.
4.1
Ack
Acknowledge
4.2
AK
Ack/Nack
4.3
ABR-REQ
Aperiodic Burst Request
4.4
ABR-RSP
Aperiodic Burst Response
4.5
AS-ACK
Association Acknowledge
4.6
AS-REQ
Association Request
4.7
AS-RSP
Association Response
4.8
Burst Master
Burst scheduler
4.9
Burst Slave
Burst schedule follower
4.10
BR-REQ
Burst Request
4.11
BR-RSP
Burst Response
4.12
BS
Burst Start
4.13
BWS
Burst Window Size
2 © ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved

4.14
CHC
Control Header CRC
4.15
CRC
Cyclic Redundancy Check
4.16
DAS-ACK
Disassociation Acknowledge
4.17
DAS-REQ
Disassociation Request
4.18
DAS-RSP
Disassociation Response
4.19
DCC-REQ
Duty Cycle Change Request
4.20
DCC-RSP
Duty Cycle Change Response
4.21
dectet
group of 10 bits (cf. octet)
4.22
DER
Data Encoding Response
4.23
Disassociatee
recipient of a DAS-REQ
4.24
Disassociator
initiator of a disassociation
4.25
DQWS
Data Quiet Window Size
4.26
ENC
Data Encoding
4.27
FL
Frame Length
4.28
f
m
Frequency of modulation clock that changes the optical output signal
© ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved 3

4.29
FT
Frame Type
4.30
Initiator
initiator of an association
4.31
LEN
Length
4.32
MF
MAC Flag
4.33
MHC
MAC Header CRC
4.34
MM
Management Message
4.35
Nack
Negative Acknowledge
4.36
OOK
On-Off Keying
4.37
OP
Operation
4.38
PL
Payload Length
4.39
PDU
Protocol Data Unit
[ISO/IEC 7498-1]
4.40
PSN
PDU Sequence Number
4.41
RC
Response Code
4.42
Recipient
receiver of a frame
4 © ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved

4.43
RFU
Reserved for Future Use
4.44
RID
Recipient ID
4.45
RVF
Recipient VF
4.46
SDL
Specification and Description Language (ITU-T Z.100)
4.47
SDU
Service Data Unit
[ISO/IEC 7498-1]
4.48
SDVLC
Short Distance Visible Light Communication
4.49
Sender
sender of a frame
4.50
SI
Start Indicator
4.51
SID
Sender ID
4.52
SMF
Supported Modulation Frequencies
4.53
Target
recipient of an AS-REQ
4.54
VF
Visible Frame
4.55
VFA
VF Mode Stop Approve
4.56
VFR
VF Mode Stop Request
© ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved 5

4.57
VLC
Visible Light Communication
5 Conventions and notations
The following conventions and notations apply in this document unless otherwise stated.
 The setting of bits is denoted by ZERO or ONE.
 An individual bit in a field is identified by a numerical subscript of the field name, where for numeric values
the least significant bit of the value is assigned to the bit with subscript 0.
 (xxxxxxx)b denotes a sequence of binary digits.
6 General
All RFU bits shall be set to 0 by the Sender and ignored by the Recipient.
Unless otherwise stated, all RFU values shall be ignored by the Recipient.
7 Physical Layer
Figure 1 illustrates the basic model of the SDVLC Transmitter and Receiver.
A SDVLC Transmitter shall have an optical output with a minimum peak irradiance of 3 W/m between 380 nm
and 780 nm over an area of at least 1,0 cm × 1,0 cm at a distance of 10 cm, and a 10% to 90% rise time t
r
and fall time t of at most 3,0 ns, illustrated in Figure 2. The SDVLC Transmitter shall have a maximum off
f
irradiance of 1 mW/m .
A SDVLC Receiver shall have an optical sensitivity from 380 nm to 780 nm and from 0 cm to at least 10 cm
from a SDVLC Transmitter.
Figure 1 — SDVLC Transmitter and Receiver
6 © ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved

Figure 2 — SDVLC Modulation Waveform
8 Transmitter and Receiver Block Diagram
8.1 Transmitter to Receiver Link
In Figure 3, the modular structures of SDVLC system are shown. When data is to be transmitted, the data is
encoded by the Data Encoding block. In the Modulation block, encoded data is used to modulate the optical
output. The optical output is then transmitted to the Receiver. The Demodulation block of the Receiver
demodulates the optical signal. The demodulated signal is then decoded by the Data Decoding block.
Optical
Transmitter Data
Modulation Signal
Data Encoding
Output
Optical
Receiver Data
Demodulation Signal
Data Decoding
Input
Figure 3 — Transmitter and Receiver block diagram
8.2 Data Encoding
SDVLC supports two different data encoding schemes. One of the data encoding schemes (8B/10B) allows
the maximum data throughput but has a fixed optical link duty cycle of 50%. The other data encoding scheme
(2B4B) has a lower data throughput but allows optical link duty cycles other than 50%.
© ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved 7

8.2.1 8B10 Data Encoding
When using 8B/10B encoding, the SDVLC Transmitter shall use the 8B/10B encoding as specified in
ISO/IEC 14165-251.
8.2.2 2B4B Data Encoding
In 2B4B encoding, the SDVLC Transmitter shall encode pairs of data bits into 4 bit symbols by selecting a row
of Table 1. Note that which row is selected in Table 1 can be different for each pair of data bits, thus allowing
for average duty cycles between 25% and 75%.
Table 1 — Data Encoding
Data
(00)b (01)b (10)b (11)b
25% (0001)b (0010)b (0100)b (1000)b
Encoded Data
50% (0011)b (0110)b (1100)b (1001)b
Duty Cycle
75% (1110)b (1101)b (1011)b (0111)b

8.3 Modulation
The modulation of the optical link is On-Off Keying (OOK).
SDVLC may support a maximum of 16 different OOK f . The f of 120 MHz is mandatory. The f shall be at
m m m
–4
the specified frequency with a relative frequency tolerance of ± 20 × 10 % and a maximum peak jitter of
100 ps.
Bit duration time t (illustrated in Figure 2) is 1/f .
b m
8.4 Bit Order
The least significant bit of each symbol shall be transmitted first, while the most significant bit of each symbol
shall be transmitted last.
9 Frame Formats
SDVLC transmissions shall be in the form of a sequence of frames, as shown in Figure 4. Each frame in the
sequence is either a Data Frame or a Visible Frame.

Figure 4 — Frame Sequence
8 © ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved

9.1 Frame Structure overview
Two frame structures shall be used in SDVLC: a Data Frame structure, as specified in Figure 5, and a Visible
Frame structure, as specified in Figure 6.

Figure 5 — Data Frame structure

© ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved 9

Figure 6 — Visible Frame structure
The choice of which frame structure to use may depend on the communication link status. When the
communication link between Transmitter and Receiver is established with good alignment, the Data Frame
structure is used for data communication. The Visible Frame structure is used to control the visible aspect of
the communication beam to notify the user of a link failure (such as misalignment between the two devices)
when the communication link between Transmitter and Receiver is not established. The decision of which
frame structure to use may be made using the information in the control header, and when the communication
link fails or becomes misaligned, the frame structure type may be changed.
The Visible Frame structure may be also used to cause the devices to show a beam while not transmitting
data, thus making visible the communication link.
9.2 Frame Structure Detail
The frame structure for SDVLC shall consist of Start Indicator, Control Header, and either a series of one or
more MAC PDUs or a Visible Pattern.
9.2.1 Start Indicator Structure
The Start Indicator structure shall consist of Preamble_1 and Preamble_2 as specified below.
Preamble_1 shall be (10)b repeated 800 times. Preamble_1 may be used by the Recipient to synchronize the
receive data clock to the received data.
For 2B4B encoding, Preamble_2 shall be (11110000)b repeated five times. For 8B/10B encoding, Preamble 2
shall be the 8B/10B K28.1 symbol repeated four times. The Recipient shall check Preamble_2 field, and if
Preamble_2 is not correct the Recipient shall consider a frame to not be started. Preamble_2 may be used by
the Recipient for symbol synchronization to denote the end of the Preamble_1 and the start of PHY data.
10 © ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved

9.2.2 Control Header Structure
After the symbol synchronization process using the Start Indicator completes, the control information shall be
transmitted in the Control Header. The format of the Control Header is specified in Figure 7, and the contents
of the Control Header are specified in Table 2. Reserved values shall not be used by a Sender. If a Recipient
receives a Control Header that uses a reserved value it shall discard the Frame.

Figure 7 — Control Header structure
© ISO/IEC 2011 – All rights reserved 11

Table 2 — Control Header contents
Field Name Description
Sender ID
Sender ID
Recipient ID
Recipient ID
0: Data frame
Frame Type
1: Visible frame
2-15: RFU
RFU
RFU
Length of Data Frame or Visible Frame,
Frame Length
from the start of the Control Header
through the end of the Frame, in bits.
0: No Ack/Nack
1: Nack
Ack/Nack
2: Ack
3-15: RFU
1: Recipient may transmit vi
...