Performance Analysis of a Co-Operative PLC/VLC System with Multiple Access Points for Indoor Broadcasting

Abstract

In this study, the authors investigate a mixed co-operative power line communication (PLC)/visible light communication (VLC) system for indoor broadcasting communication systems. The PLC system acts as a backhaul link to the VLC link. The information from the PLC link is transmitted to the VLC link with the assistance of a relay employing decode and forward (DF) protocol. The PLC system is subjected to log normally distributed fading and additive noises. The VLC link consists of multiple access points (APs) which serve the end users. The channel characteristics of the VLC systems are dependent on the randomly distributed user positions. The selection combining (SC) diversity combining technique is employed to select that access point which offers the maximum instantaneous signal to noise ratio (SNR) to the end user at the VLC end. We present the closed form expressions of the cumulative distribution function (CDF) and probability density function (PDF) of the equivalent end to end SNR of the proposed mixed powerline/visible light communication system. Furthermore, the performance of the system is analyzed in terms of various performance metrics such as outage probability and bit error rate (BER).