Performance analysis of VLC based on 802.11ac frame structure

Abstract

Visible light communication (VLC) has gained tremendous attention recently as it possesses prominent features to address the limitations imposed by current wireless technologies, such as high capacity, high spectral efficiency, high energy efficiency, low battery consumption, and low latency. In this letter, we have designed a packet-based VLC protocol based on the IEEE 802.11ac frame structure, which can be utilized for the simulation, analysis, and testing of a wireless VLC communication system. Our evaluation is based on the channel impulse responses (CIRs) provided by the IEEE task group for the 802.15.7r1 standard, where we estimate the channel based on the legacy fields and then compare the performance of wireless VLC with a radio frequency (RF) 802.11ac-based wireless local area network (WLAN). We demonstrate in this letter that the VLC can be comfortably incorporated with the already existing communication standards and is also capable of providing equal performance as that of the 802.11ac.