Design of a Cognitive VLC Network with Illumination and Handover Requirements

In this paper, we consider a cognitive indoor visible light communications (VLC) system, comprised of multiple access points serving primary and secondary users through the orthogonal frequency division multiple access method. A cognitive lighting cell is divided into two non-overlapping regions that distinguish the primary and secondary users based on the region they are located in. Under the assumption of equal-power allocation among subcarriers, each region is defined in terms of its physical area and the number of allocated subcarriers within that region. In this paper, we provide the lighting cell design with cognitive constraints that guarantee fulfilling certain illumination, user mobility, and handover requirements in each cell. We further argue that, under some conditions, a careful assignment of the subcarriers in each region can mitigate the co-channel interference in the overlapping areas of adjacent cells. Numerical results depict the influence of different system parameters, such as user density, on defining both regions. Finally, a realistic example is implemented to assess the performance of the proposed scheme via Monte Carlo simulations

Introduction to indoor networking concepts and challenges in LiFi

LiFi is networked, bidirectional wireless communication with light. It is used to connect fixed and mobile devices at very high data rates by harnessing the visible light and infrared spectrum. Combined, these spectral resources are 2600 times larger than the entire radio frequency (RF) spectrum. This paper provides the motivation behind why LiFi is a very timely technology, especially for 6th generation (6G) cellular communications. It discusses and reviews essential networking technologies, such as interference mitigation and hybrid LiFi/Wi-Fi networking topologies. We also consider the seamless integration of LiFi into existing wireless networks to form heterogeneous networks across the optical and RF domains and discuss implications and solutions in terms of load balancing. Finally, we provide the results of a real-world hybrid LiFi/Wi-Fi network deployment in a software defined networking testbed. In addition, results from a LiFi deployment in a school classroom are provided, which show that Wi-Fi network performance can be improved significantly by offloading traffic to the LiFi

Joint Optimization of Illumination and Communication for a Multi-Element VLC Architecture

Because of the ever increasing demand wireless data in the modern era, the Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum is becoming more congested. The remaining RF spectrum is being shrunk at a very heavy rate, and spectral management is becoming more difficult. Mobile data is estimated to grow more than 10 times between 2013 and 2019, and due to this explosion in data usage, mobile operators are having serious concerns focusing on public Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) and other alternative technologies. Visible Light Communication (VLC) is a recent promising technology complementary to RF spectrum which operates at the visible light spectrum band (roughly 400 THz to 780 THz) and it has 10,000 times bigger size than radio waves (roughly 3 kHz to 300 GHz). Due to this tremendous potential, VLC has captured a lot of interest recently as there is already an extensive deployment of energy efficient Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). The advancements in LED technology with fast nanosecond switching times is also very encouraging. In this work, we present hybrid RF/VLC architecture which is capable of providing simultaneous lighting and communication coverage in an indoor setting. The architecture consists of a multi-element hemispherical bulb design, where it is possible to transmit multiple data streams from the multi-element hemispherical bulb using LED modules. We present the detailed components of the architecture and make simulations considering various VLC transmitter configurations. Also, we devise an approach for an efficient bulb design mechanism to maintain both illumination and communication at a satisfactory rate, and analyze it in the case of two users in a room. The approach involves formulating an optimization problem and tackling the problem using a simple partitioning algorithm. The results indicate that good link quality and high spatial reuse can be maintained in a typical indoor communication setting

Analyzing Interface Bonding Schemes for VLC with Mobility and Shadowing

Node mobility and shadowing are the most common reasons requiring a handover in vehicular visible light communications (VVLC). In order to provide seamless mobility during the handover, it is required to decrease the network outage duration. This paper aims to improve the outage duration in handover caused by mobility and shadow for VLC networks. We analyze interface bonding schemes using two different primary interface reselection methods. The results show that using "failure"interface selection method instead of "always"method reduces the VLC handover outage duration by 62% and 44% in bonding schemes for transmission control protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP) network traffic, respectively

OCC Future and Obstacles under 5g Requirements

Telecommunications specifications of the fifth-generation (5 G) are being established to satisfy the rising demands of high-speed broadband networks (i.e., a few tens of Gigabits every second). The 5 G standard derives primarily from a rising number of subscribers and a multitude of various apps, commonly referred to as smart devices, communicating as part of Internet-of-Things (IoT) network For 5 G, a few possible developments such as millimeter waves, large multiple-input multiple-output, and small cell connectivity have appeared. While such technologies will meet 5 G specifications, attention is being given to a complementary potential wireless optical wireless communication (OWC) system. Clear light contact (VLC) as part of OWC. Among the most desirable solutions for 5 G networks and beyond are optical camera communications (OCCs). As part of future smart cities, VLC with huge frequency spectrum integrated with IoT that opens up a broad range of indoor and outdoor applications. This paper gives a description of the VLC-centric all-optical IoT and Potential implementations and issues centered on OCC under 5 G Requirement

Heterogeneous integration of optical wireless communications within next generation networks

Unprecedented traffic growth is expected in future wireless networks and new technologies will be needed to satisfy demand. Optical wireless (OW) communication offers vast unused spectrum and high area spectral efficiency. In this work, optical cells are envisioned as supplementary access points within heterogeneous RF/OW networks. These networks opportunistically offload traffic to optical cells while utilizing the RF cell for highly mobile devices and devices that lack a reliable OW connection. Visible light communication (VLC) is considered as a potential OW technology due to the increasing adoption of solid state lighting for indoor illumination. Results of this work focus on a full system view of RF/OW HetNets with three primary areas of analysis. First, the need for network densication beyond current RF small cell implementations is evaluated. A media independent model is developed and results are presented that provide motivation for the adoption of hyper dense small cells as complementary components within multi-tier networks. Next, the relationships between RF and OW constraints and link characterization parameters are evaluated in order to define methods for fair comparison when user-centric channel selection criteria are used. RF and OW noise and interference characterization techniques are compared and common OW characterization models are demonstrated to show errors in excess of 100x when dominant interferers are present. Finally, dynamic characteristics of hyper dense OW networks are investigated in order to optimize traffic distribution from a network-centric perspective. A Kalman Filter model is presented to predict device motion for improved channel selection and a novel OW range expansion technique is presented that dynamically alters coverage regions of OW cells by 50%. In addition to analytical results, the dissertation describes two tools that have been created for evaluation of RF/OW HetNets. A communication and lighting simulation toolkit has been developed for modeling and evaluation of environments with VLC-enabled luminaires. The toolkit enhances an iterative site based impulse response simulator model to utilize GPU acceleration and achieves 10x speedup over the previous model. A software defined testbed for OW has also been proposed and applied. The testbed implements a VLC link and a heterogeneous RF/VLC connection that demonstrates the RF/OW HetNet concept as proof of concept

Measurements-Based Channel Models for Indoor LiFi Systems

Light-fidelity (LiFi) is a fully-networked bidirectional optical wireless communication (OWC) that is considered a promising solution for high-speed indoor connectivity. Unlike in conventional radio frequency wireless systems, the OWC channel is not isotropic, meaning that the device orientation affects the channel gain significantly. However, due to the lack of proper channel models for LiFi systems, many studies have assumed that the receiver is vertically upward and randomly located within the coverage area, which is not a realistic assumption from a practical point of view. In this paper, novel realistic and measurement-based channel models for indoor LiFi systems are proposed. Precisely, the statistics of the channel gain are derived for the case of randomly oriented stationary and mobile LiFi receivers. For stationary users, two channel models are proposed, namely, the modified truncated Laplace (MTL) model and the modified Beta (MB) model. For LiFi users, two channel models are proposed, namely, the sum of modified truncated Gaussian (SMTG) model and the sum of modified Beta (SMB) model. Based on the derived models, the impact of random orientation and spatial distribution of LiFi users is investigated, where we show that the aforementioned factors can strongly affect the channel gain and system performance