Green Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Chapter 6Radio Frequency and Visible Light Communication Internetworking

Heterogeneous wireless networks mainly rely on RF network integration, such as cellular networks and WLANs or macro- and femto-cell cooperation as discussed in the previous chapters, to enhance the users perceived service quality and improve the achieved energy efficiency. However, such RF networks suffer from spectrum congestion. As a result, new network technologies that present larger spectrum availability should be introduced. In this context, VLC is considered to be a promising network technology that can offer high data rates with almost no transmission power consumption. Yet, VLC suffers from some technical limitations (such as absence of line of sight (LoS) and infeasibility of uplink transmission) that motivate its integration with RF network technologies to enhance the overall network performance. This chapter discusses RF and VLC integration in heterogeneous networks. Several integration objectives are presented such as load balancing, throughput maximization and uplink data transmission. Then, this chapter focuses on RF and VLC internetworking for green (energy-efficient) communications. A radio resource allocation mechanism that can improve downlink energy efficiency in an integrated RF–VLC network is presented and the challenging issues are discussed.

6.1 Introduction

Using visible light for communications dates back to the early ages, when humans relied on beacon fires and lighthouses to ...