High speed integrated RF–VLC data communication system: Performance constraints and capacity considerations

Abstract

In this research paper, we propose a two-hop integrated radio frequency–visible light communication (RF–VLC) system which may provide a better option to transceive between the hospitals and some laboratory to transfer patient’s information. In the proposed system model, the data (such as patient’s lab test reports) is transmitted towards the amplify and forward (AF) relay mounted on the top of the hospital building via the RF channel. Further, the AF relay amplifies and converts the received information into corresponding optical signal using light emitting diodes (LED) and supporting circuitry. This optical signal is then forwarded towards the destination device (equipped with VLC transceiver), via the VLC channel. To analyse the performance of the system, we first derive the closed form analytical expressions for the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the end-to-end (e2e) signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the system by using the moment generating function (MGF) of the SNR of the individual RF and VLC channels. Further, we use these statistical expressions to obtain the outage probability, average bit error rate (BER) and the average capacity of the system. Moreover, the asymptotic performance of the proposed system is also analysed to study the system’s behaviour at high SNR regimes. Finally, we studied the impact of the variations in channel parameters on the proposed system model performance through numerically simulated plots.