Flip-GFDM complexity reduction for a power-efficient visible light communication system

Visible light communication (VLC) has emerged as a promising solution to the limitations of traditional radio frequency systems, leveraging LEDs for high-speed, interference-free data transmission. However, optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) techniques such as Flip-OFDM face challenges including high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) and spectral inefficiency. This study introduces what we believe to be a novel flip-generalized frequency division multiplexing waveform (Flip-GFDM), named non-Hermitian Flip-GFDM (NH-Flip-GFDM), designed to reduce complexity. By eliminating Hermitian symmetry and halving the IFFT/FFT size, the proposed approach achieves significant computational savings, with about a 50% reduction in complexity. Simulation results reveal that NH-Flip-GFDM maintains comparable symbol error rate (SER) and bit error rate (BER) performance to traditional Flip-GFDM while reducing PAPR by approximately 2 dB over Flip-OFDM. These improvements position NH-Flip-GFDM as a power-efficient and cost-effective solution for next-generation VLC systems.