Publication
Resilience of Visible Light Communication: Manchester Encoding Effects Under Laser Jamming
Yorman Munoz; Lucresse Dongfack Tsakeng; Ihab Alzalam; Annika Tjabben; Christoph Lipps; Hans Dieter Schotten
In: VTC2026-Spring. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), June 9-12, Nizza, France, IEEE, 2026.
Abstract
Visible Light Communication (VLC) is actively investigated as a complementary communication technology for Sixth Generation (6G) networks, leveraging its directional propagation and inherent security advantages. However, VLC systems remain vulnerable to physical-layer attacks such as laser-based jamming, particularly in outdoor Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) scenarios with Line of Sight (LoS) exposure. In this work, an experimental evaluation of the resilience of Manchester encoding under laser-induced interference using a lightweight OpenVLC platform is presented. The analysis focuses on the timing-based properties of Manchester encoding and its ability to distinguish legitimate signals from optical interference without requiring additional hardware. Experimental results show that packet loss exceeds 90% under high-frequency jamming patterns (5–21 ms), while remaining below approximately 10% for lower-frequency interference (5–500 ms). These findings demonstrate that timing-structured modulation can sustain partial communication under structured optical jamming and highlight its potential as a lightweight Physical Layer Security (PLS) mechanism for resilient VLC systems.