Reflection-based relaying techniques in visible light communications: will it work?

Visible light communication (VLC) is capable of satisfying the escalating data rate demand in indoor scenarios. The lighting infrastructure may also be exploited in the downlink of a wireless local area network (WLAN), where light-emitting diodes are used for transmitting information. The backhaul of VLC access points (APs) constitutes a potential bottleneck in WLANs, especially in large rooms where the number of APs is high. Thus, an alternative reflection-based cooperative wireless system concept is proposed, where no wired connections are required for connecting the APs. Then, its data rate analysis is developed based on the signal-to-noise ratio attained. The results show that the performance of the cooperative wireless system advocated closely approximates the performance of the traditional wired backhaul. Finally, we demonstrate by using Jain's index of fairness that the proposed scheme provides fair coverage quality for all users.