Comparing Gausian and exact models of malicious interference in VLC systems

Abstract

Visible Light Communication (VLC) is a technique for high-speed, low-cost wireless data transmission based on LED luminaries. Wireless LAN environments are a major application of VLC. In these environments, VLC is used in place of traditional systems such as Wi-Fi. Because of the physical characteristics of visible light, VLC is considered to be superior to traditional radio-based communication in terms of security. However, as in all wireless systems, the security of VLC with respect to eavesdropping, signal jamming and modification must be analyzed. This paper focuses on the aspect of jamming in VLC networks. In environments where multiple VLC transmitters are used, there is the possibility that one or more transmitters will be hostile (or rogue). This leads to communication disruption, and in some cases, the hijacking of the legitimate data stream. In this paper we present the theoretical system model that is used in simulations to evaluate various rogue transmission scenarios in a typical indoor environment. The typical approach used so far in jamming analysis assumes that all disruptive transmissions may be modeled as Gaussian noise, but this assumption may be too simplistic. We analyze and compare two models of VLC jamming: the simplified Gaussian and the exact model, where the full characteristics of the interfering signal are taken into account. Our aim is to determine which methodology is adequate for studying signal jamming in VLC systems.