Unique Key-Based Secured Transmission Protocol for Rolling Shutter Visible Light Communications

In this letter, we propose a novel secure transmission protocol for rolling shutter visible light communication (RS-VLC) that leverages unique cryptographic key generation through linear feedback shift registers and bad pixel (BP) mapping. This method ensures data integrity and confidentiality by dynamically encoding data based on device-specific BP maps. Our results demonstrate a substantial improvement in bit error rate performance while reducing the complexity of key generation, encryption, and decryption to the order of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$</tex-math></inline-formula>, where <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$</tex-math></inline-formula> is the number of bits in the key. The lower computational complexity of the proposed protocol makes it suitable for low-power internet-of-things devices and mobile applications. We also provide a comparative analysis with existing cryptographic schemes, demonstrating the enhanced security and lightweight nature of the proposed approach.