Design of an integrated Power Line Communication (PLC)-visible light communication (VLC) system for data communication

Visible light communication (VLC) is a robust alternative wireless technology that uses visible light for data communication. The recent successful standardization of broadband power line communication (PLC) through IEEE 1901, ITUT G.9960/61 and visible light communication (VLC) through IEEE 802.15.7 leads one to consider their integration. On the one hand, the existing infrastructure of PLC can greatly reduce the cost of integrated VLC-PLC system. On the other hand, it is highly beneficial to use laser diodes or light emitting diodes (LEDs) for data communication while exploiting these optical transmitters for illumination at the same time. Similar to Wi-Fi, which uses Ethernet connections as the backbone network, VLC may be a good complementary indoor wireless communication system using PLC as the backbone network. In this paper integration of VLC with existing PLC network is proposed. The system consists of non-directed optical access point with an LED array transmitter and a Si-based photodiode (PD) receiver. The work investigates the possibility of introducing statistical hybrid VLC-PLC channel, modulation and their integration. This VLC-PLC system is then analysed in terms of connectivity, range, and the waveform distortion; moreover, the use of optical filter has been intelligently used to increase the connectivity range of VLC transceiver.