VLC: Beyond point-to-point communication

Abstract

Due to the large growth of mobile communications over the past two decades, cellular systems have resorted to fuller and denser reuse of bandwidth to cope with the growing demand. On one hand, this approach raises the achievable system capacity. On the other hand, however, the increased interference caused by the dense spatial reuse inherently limits the achievable network throughput. Therefore, the spectral efficiency gap between users' demand and network capabilities is ever growing. Most recently, visible light communication has been identified as well equipped to provide additional bandwidth and system capacity without aggregating the interference in the mobile network. Furthermore, energy-efficient indoor lighting and the large amount of indoor traffic can be combined inherently. In this article, VLC is examined as a viable and ready complement to RF indoor communications, and advancement toward future communications. Various application scenarios are discussed, presented with supporting simulation results, and the current technologies and challenges pertaining to VLC implementation are investigated. Finally, an overview of recent VLC commercialization is presented.