This paper presents the systematic evaluation of performance of indoor optical wireless communication using different modulation schemes and micro electro mechanical systems - single channel imaging receiver (MEMS-SCIR). For the future modern world, indoor optical wireless communications (OWC) play a vital role. The main objective is to compare the performance of various modulation schemes in terms of their bit error probability. On -off keying (OOK) and pulse position modulation (PPM) are widely used in optical wireless communication for its simplicity. Here different digital modulation schemes are approached; bit error rate (BER) is calculated over additive white Gaussian noise channel (AWGN). M-quadrature amplitude modulation (MQAM) gives a better BER performance compared to the M- phase shift keying (MPSK). Thus, MQAM based MEMS-SCIR provides better performance in indoor optical wireless communications. © (2014) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.